Romanian Echoes

In 1999, during a visit to Professor Ion Cheptea in Bucharest, he informed me that the Music Academy were to organise an international double bass competition in 2002. We were both very excited about the event and Professor Cheptea asked me to write a work for unaccompanied double bass for the competition, to be played by the Romanian students.

Hommage à Joseph Prunner begins with double stops, inspired by Romanian folk music, and in the middle section I have tried to echo Prunner’s belief that the ‘cantilena’ should be played on one string in higher positions

Dance and Improvisation has become one of the most important pieces in my solo repertoire and was premiered at a concert organised by Hull Music Society. Since then, I have performed it at the Royal Northern College of Music (Manchester), Cite des Arts (Paris), Royal Academy of Music (London), Edinburgh Fringe, Manchester Cathedral, Wakefield Cathedral and the Romanian Cultural Institutes in Paris and London.

I was inspired by an old Romanian folk tune – Captain of the County performed by musicians in my family for at least 200 years. The piece explores the vast solo possibilities of the double bass by using different bow techniques, left and right hand pizzicato and creating sounds which bring to mind the human voice and the instruments used in folk music. The timing of the piece is fluent, not precise but moving in different directions, giving the performer the possibility of a personal emotional response. The piece is dedicated to the great Czech Double Bassist František Pošta.