Tony Osborne: Miserere for soprano & double bass octet

About the Composition

Miserere is a beautifully atmospheric and powerful work, which is in complete contrast to Tony Osborne’s jazzy and rhythmic music for the double bass. The scope is filmic in design, with a wide range of evocative soundscapes and images, often bleak, sometimes animated, making effective use of slow-moving chordal writing across the double bass range, featuring suspensions and moments of tension.

The solo soprano (wordless) is able to weave long, sinuous melodies above wonderfully effective writing for double bass octet, throughout its entire range, and the contrasts of styles and emotions are striking.

Miserere was composed in 2007/8 to commemorate the 90th anniversary of the end of the First World War and is a dramatic one-movement work which will appeal to players and audiences alike. It also exists in a version for solo violin and double bass octet.

Your purchase includes the score and individual parts.

About the Composer

Born in 1947 into a musical family, Tony Osborne studied at the Royal Academy of Music (London) with John Walton (double bass) and Richard Stoker (composition), and divided a busy career between composing, teaching, and performing. A prolific composer and arranger, Tony's original compositions include works in almost every genre, notably Chaconne Syncopations and Wainwright's Ways for brass quintet, Celebration Fanfare for brass ensemble, the musical A Fine Time for Wine, a beautiful and dramatic Requiem, and many works for string orchestra.

Tony’s music for young bassists is very much at the heart of the teaching repertoire, particularly his jazzy and enjoyable bass trios and quartets, and he had the rare ability to create wonderful music which is always player and audience-friendly.

In 2001, Tony Osborne was elected an ARAM (Associate of the Royal Academy of Music) for his pioneering and important work for double bass, and was a featured composer at Bass-Fest for over ten years. He was a very successful BIBF Composer-in-residence in 2002-3, was a judge for the British Composer Awards and a judge for the BIBF Composition Competition from 1999 until 2015.

Tony Osborne died on 30 March 2019 at the age of 71.