Repertoire for double bass and piano?

[lelle]

Hello pianostreet, me and a friend have been discussing playing a duo with double bass (or maybe I should call it contrabass?) and piano (I'll be the pianist). I'm totally unfamilliar with this kind of repertoire so I'd love some recommendations of pieces I should check out. It can be in any style as long as it sounds good and isn't too difficult  

Thanks in advance!  

[bluthner]

Just out from Forberg-Jurgenson/Peters, apparently:

Nikolai Kapustin's Concerto for Double Bass & Piano opus 76

For a preview of the score & a recording, see

https://www.nikolai-kapustin.info/

under the button 'audio'

By the sound of it, the piano part seems not as fiendishly difficult as some of Kapustin's music can be.

[oxy60]

And what about that bass part? If one can play that part well they could have a good paying job with a major orchestra!

[birba]

One of the first concerts i ever accompanied was with double bass, which i thought was quite wierd at the time.  You must play piano - as in soft - because despite it's size it's not as sonorous As a violin or cello.  We played koussevitzky, and bottesini.  The latter is an italian composer from the early 19 th century, i believe.  He played the double bass and wrote lots of pieces.

[j_menz]

If you look on IMSLP you can do a search that will give you a reasonable list of pieces:

https://imslp.org/index.php?title=Category:For_double_bass%2C_piano&transclude=Template:Catintro

[oxy60]

One of the first concerts i ever accompanied was with double bass, which i thought was quite wierd at the time.  You must play piano - as in soft - because despite it's size it's not as sonorous As a violin or cello.  We played koussevitzky, and bottesini.  The latter is an italian composer from the early 19 th century, i believe.  He played the double bass and wrote lots of pieces.

I am also a bass player. In my college years we tried some bass duets. For all the work we did it didn't sound right. Notes that low don't harmonize well. The top string on a double bass sounds as the G on the last line of the bass clef. Our parts are written an octave higher to make it easier to read.

It could be that a well written piano part that takes advantage of the over-tones to define the bass note being played could be a success.  Good luck!

[lelle]

Haha thanks guys! I didn't know about that IMSLP trick. maybe I'll check out some Bottesini or something..