You will always find some difficult passages in Leos Janácek’s works. Two examples are a) in the opera “The Cunning Little Vixen”. Commencing at the Allegro after Fig. 4 Act 1 there are 31 bars of harmonics for one bass solo and following that 2 bars 4/4 before fig. 29 there is a long difficult passage.

b) In the opera Katya Kabanova there are a couple of bars bass solo that are a trifle difficult. I forget exactly where they are but you can find them easily by perusing the score You would do well to find both of these excerpts and put them in your scrap book as they have come up occasionally in bass auditions for principal bass positions in opera orchestras. Some conductors like to catch you off guard so be prepared!

No doubt you have been practicing some of the many difficult bass parts that Prokofieff wrote- his symphonies, Lt Kijé etc, but there are a couple of his ballets that you might not find in an excerpt book which you should look at if you happen to have to audition for a ballet job.

The first I can think of is his ballet “Cinderella”, round about Fig.34. It is one of the main themes; first written in the minor later changing to the major a couple of bars later. Although it l looks quite simple I have known some bassists who have fallen down on it.

The second is his ballet “Le Fils Prodigue” (The Prodigal Son), which I have known to be given at some ballet auditions. Starting at Fig.1 it carries on for 20 bars, then at Fig. 5 there is a very exposed 7 bar soli passage.

Another ballet of his, “Romeo and Juliet” is not too difficult but it’s well worth casting an eye on it beforehand if you know it’s coming up in your repertoire.

You can find many difficult bass parts in Darius Milhaud’s works, some of which come up occasionally at auditions. He was born in 1892 and died in 1974.  He was a rather whimsical sort of man and devoted much of his life to composing what some might call odd pieces.  He was a member of “Les Six”.  Around the ’70’s he was commissioned to write a piece by one of the leading Universities but when he delivered it they found it to be ridiculously short and wouldn’t accept it.

If you know there is one of his  pieces coming up on the programme it would be as well to take a good look at it, for he wrote some very difficult bass passages.

I have chosen two examples of his writing:  The first is”Le Boeuf sur le toit”  ( The bull on the roof) a humorous ballet for Jean Cocteau which was given in England as the “Nothing- doing bar”.  The second is his Suite Provençale starting at the animé after 20.  It has many accidentals, doesn’t go very high, but it’s one of those little tongue twisters that if you’ve never seen it before can give you a lot of trouble. Put it in your scrap book!

Opera, L’Enfant et les Sortilèges by Ravel

You can always count on Ravel to put a few harmonics in the bass part; one piece I can think of is his “Mother Goose” Suite. At one time there were heated debates over suggested changes to some of the harmonics but now there is a general concensus of opinion that the printed part is correct.

I was fortunate enough to play a concert performance of “L’Enfant et les Sortilèges” in the late 1940’s with the London Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by Victor de Sabata the brilliant principal conductor and Director of la Scala Milan who had conducted the first performance. He got a wonderful performance and at rehearsal even corrected the pronunciation of a French choir that was brought over specially.
There is a big bass solo consisting of all harmonics combined with two flutes that starts near the beginning of the opera at Fig. 1 which goes on for 21 bars or so. It is very exposed. There are other difficult bits around Fig. 95 Adagio and 96. Victor Watson played the solo bass part which he found very difficult both technically and rhythmically.
Some years later I played the solo part. I got through it O.K. but I was glad when it was over!

Theme and variations for Orchestra by Schönberg, Variation IV.  Tempo di Valse  Beginning Bar108

After a few bars there is a bracket. and from hereon there is a solo part for two basses in octaves.  The first bass part employs bass, treble and tenor clefs and is very transparent with lots of accidentals.

If you can obtain a part it’s well worth putting in your scrap book, and if you don’t have a scrap book it’s time you started one!

Josef Holbrooke, born in England in 1878 was a prolific composer.  He was fond of  Edgar Allan Poe’s writings and one of his pieces “The Raven” contains a lengthy solo for the double bass.  The bass comes in, dead cold, and the solo goes on and on and on.  It is slow, marked Largo molto sostenuto and then has an Agitato section which leads in to an Allegro Sostenuto.

Technically it is not very difficult, but it needs to be played in a very prima donna fashion, maybe taking a little license in parts of it.

Holbrooke’s music isn’t performed very much nowadays, but if ever it comes up on one of your programmes be prepared!

Further to my other articles on auditions I thought I would mention some unusual pieces that I have been asked to play at auditions during the course of my career.

The English composer Sir Granville Bantock’s compositions are not played very much nowadays.  He was a prolific composer, having written operas, ballets, choral works, orchestral works, chamber music, music for harp, cello, violin and viola and many songs.

He lived from 1868 until 1946 and was Principal of the Birmingham and Midland Institute School of Music where I first studied the double bass with Arthur Cockerill, the principal bass of the City of Birmingham Orchestra as it was then known, and the BBC Midland Orchestra.

His pieces were often performed by the BBC orchestras.  Sir Adrian Boult was a champion of his compositions.

You can always count on a little bit of solo bass in his works.  There is his Comedy Overture  “The Pierrot of the Minute” which contains a difficult, exposed solo that I was once asked to play at a BBC audition.  Another one to look out for is his Tone Poem #3, “Fifine at the Fair”.

If you care to spend time browsing through his works you will find many other bass solos.

There are many  books of extracts of  difficult bits for the bass but in future I shall try to give some relatively unknown ones which to the best of my knowledge aren’t in any collections.

It was WWII that put classical music on the map in England.  During the war an organization was formed, The Council For Encouragement of Music and the Arts, (C.E.M.A.), which sponsored concerts for the entertainment of the Troops and munitions workers. Later on it was taken over by a department of the British Council. The London Philharmonic Orchestra and the London Symphony Orchestra were funded together with many smaller classical ensembles.  The concerts were well attended and so began the big post war classical music revival which lasted for over twenty years.  Then the economy changed, and also peoples tastes, plus there was a huge development in recording technique and television.

Walter Legge founded the. Philharmonia Orchestra in the mid ‘forties and a little later Sir Thomas Beecham founded the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra.  This meant five Symphony orchestras in London (if the BBC symphony Orchestra is included) fighting for a part of an ever diminishing pie.

Perhaps there was a surfeit of classical music or maybe the rise of rock bands contributed to the diminishing audience also the shortage of discretionary cash plus the proliferation of ipods has affected matters.

For the past few years much of the recording that was done in London has now given way to recording in some of the Eastern European countries where the fees are much less and as I mentioned in Blog #1 of this series technology  has developed so rapidly that virtual orchestras replace live musicians in the pit. Despite the doom and gloom that prevails I notice that many concerts still attract full audiences, the reason being, I think, is that these are superbly played and designed to give the classical music lovers not just a concert but a great experience. The old days of giving a Tchaikovsky Symphony, the Grieg piano concerto and the 1812 overture with military band and fireworks may be going out of the window.
The last surviving radio orchestra in North America, the CBC Vancouver Radio Orchestra was recently axed.  I read some comments in the newspapers where it was hinted that the idea behind it all was to recognize the huge ethnic community in Canada and play more ethnic music.  We may even see such instruments as pan-pipes, nakers, samisens etc. incorporated into our Western orchestras, who knows what the future will bring. There is certainly an increase in the number of Oriental, Middle Eastern and South Asian artists playing at concerts and on TV in Vancouver, B.C. and very good they are too.

I was in China recently, and interestingly enough I noticed that Western music was burgeoning there.  They had several symphony orchestras.

Perhaps in my next life I shall be known as Bob the samisen not Bob the bass!

I entered the musical scene in London, England in mid 1945; which by then was rapidly changing.  I mentioned in previous blogposts the state of the musical profession pre.WWII which was a lot different compared with nowadays. In the old days not many people owned a telephone, so musicians were contacted by letter or telegram and also sought work in London by hanging around the Archer Street H.Q. of the Musicians’ Union in the West End which I visited  once in 1945.    Everyone carried a business card that they proferred to anybody whom they thought might give them work.  There was a small cafeteria and a notice board plus a poste restante and a telephone. It was all very primitive but it seemed to work.
Hitherto most musicians relied on what was called a “shop”, i.e. a theatre where they could be assured of an adequate (or barely adequate) living,  and most theatres allowed them to put in a deputy if they were offered a better paying gig outside the theatre.  There were many tea shops and restaurants that employed musicians and in the summer there was a migration to the seaside where practically all the major resorts employed a temporary summertime orchestra, also there were the dance bands and ships orchestras  that flourished.
During  the war many theatres had been bombed and were never repaired, and also the state of the economy had changed and developers eyed some of them for building supermarkets, Bingo halls and bowling alleys which were just coming into fashion, also so many fine theatres were demolished. Then there were technical improvements in the sound industry which have continued to this day.  We now have “virtual orchestras’, recorded music in the pit for ballet music etc,  home entertainment, the television, the telephone, the cell phone etc.etc.

I prefer playing in a concert hall to a church, where it is usually difficult to place the orchestra properly.  There are more accidents happening to basses when playing away from a concert hall, I know, I’ve seen them happen.  I made it a policy to always look around for a safe place to put the bass when I wasn’t actually playing it.  Leaving it on the platform is not safe.  The altar, lectern and choir stalls are often in the way so so if it is an important concert the organizers may want to spend  money on platforms etc.  Of course this may be expensive, and if the church is a small one it will almost surely put the concert  finances in the red.  A large cathedral is best suited for a temporary stage to be built because there is space for a big audience to justify costs.

Outdoor concerts, for me,were a bane. I remember on Hampstead Heath in London there was a permanent stage with an overhead canopy situated in front of  a lake. It was OK as regards adequate seating for the orchestra but the mosquitoes were terrible.  One had to take an ample supply of bug screen, but somehow or other one of the little pests would always bite.  Then there was the wind.  I always took some clothes pins along so the music would not disappear in  a sudden gust. You had to be careful of the bass as condensation appeared on it by the end of the concert, so I always gave my bass a good rub down and put it back in its case as soon as possible.

Just before the concert, the impresario would always say to us “Don’t hope for rain boys, it never rains for me”. He had been putting on these concerts for years and Fate was kind to him, it never did rain.

When I was playing with the Vancouver Symphony Orchestra there were always concerts given on the top of Grouse Mountain which were well attended, but the orchestra still had to cope with bugs and gusts of wind. Too, there was the cold to consider and I always put my bass in its case as soon as possible even in the interval because it may be expensive if some repair patches become unglued and you have to take your bass in for repair, possibly having to have the belly removed.
Faced with costs like these it may be better for you to turn the date down and only accept dates in regular concert halls or own a second, cheap instrument and use that.