Teppo Hauta-aho: Homage à Koussevitsky for unaccompanied double bass

About the Composition

Homage à Koussevitsky was composed in 2008, inspired by the Paris Double Bass Convention that year, and is an impressive, inventive, and colorful one-movement work for the advanced bassist.

The piece is episodic, emphasizing the lyrical, tonal, and timbral qualities available to the 21st-century double bassist, and employs the entire range of the solo double bass. There are musical and technical challenges aplenty and it is composed in a modern but lyrical and accessible idiom. Atmospheric and evocative, dramatic and powerful, the piece evokes a range of moods and emotions within its short time span.

About the Composer

Teppo Hauta-aho (1941-2021) was the most prolific composer in the history of the instrument and is a past master at writing innovative works for solo double bass, encapsulating many techniques and effects employed by the contemporary double bassist today. His inventive use of harmonics and pizzicato chords have been copied by many other composers and his influence on young composers and bassists is incalculable.