Charles Labro: Concertino No. 7 for double bass & piano (ed. David Heyes)

About the Composition

Concertino No. 7 is a fun and engaging solo, probably composed in the early 1850s, and is for a four-stringed double bass tuned in 4ths from a time when many different tunings were used across Europe. It remains almost exclusively in bass clef, is ideal for the Intermediate bassist, and is in one extended movement featuring a range of accessible musical and technical challenges in the orchestral range of the instrument including an extended passage played pizzicato.

Concertino No. 7 was used as an examination piece at the Paris Conservatoire in 1852, 1858, 1863 and 1874 and was first published in 1852. It is in orchestral tuning and is also available in a version for solo double bass and string orchestra (or quintet).

Charles Labro composed a number of works for double bass, popular as examination pieces at the Paris Conservatoire for many years, including ten Concertinos, four Morceaux de Concert and a Méthode de contre-basse (c.1860).

About the Composer

French bassist-composer Charles Labro (1810-1882) studied cello, double bass and composition at the Paris Conservatoire and in 1837 became Principal Bass of the Opéra-Comique. He held the same position at the Société des concerts du Conservatoire from 1843 and a decade later succeeded Louis-François Chaft as professor of double bass at the Paris Conservatoire.