Teppo Hauta-aho: Duo for bassoon & double bass

About the Composition

Duo for bassoon (or violoncello) and double bass was premiered at Teppo-Fest (Wells Cathedral School, Somerset) on Sunday 22 May 2011 by Mollie Stallard (bassoon) and Robin Stallard (double bass). Composed for this talented brother and sister, an extended one-movement work offers effective musical and technical challenges in equal measure.

There are opportunities for each instrument to perform as both soloist and accompanist, alongside effective solo cadenzas, and Duo is a work of great invention and atmosphere which is typical of the music by this unique Finnish composer. An amazing wealth of sounds and tone colours are used, exploiting many tonal and timbral landscapes, and it would be ideal for the intermediate duo.

The double bass part remains in bass clef throughout.

If played by cello instead of bassoon the cellist should play one octave higher from the last note of bar 252 to the end of bar 254.

This purchase includes parts for double bass and bassoon, as well as the full score.

About the Composer

Finnish composer and bassist Teppo Hauta-aho was the most prolific bass composer of our time and since the 1970s has composed more than 400 works for double bass - spanning the entire range of standards from beginner to virtuoso.

Teppo Hauta-aho was born in 1941 and studied double bass with Orvo Hyle and Oiva Nummelin in Finland, and František Pošta in Prague. He played with the Helsinki Philharmonic between 1965 and 1972, and the Finnish Opera Orchestra from 1975 to 2000. Teppo Hauta-aho was an active recitalist, both classical and jazz, gave more than 300 recitals with his duo partner, Carita Holmström, and was at the cutting edge of modern improvisation - performing with leading improvisers throughout the world, for many years.

Finnish composer Harry Wessman writes: "As a composer, Teppo Hauta-aho has always been his own teacher, basing his technical knowledge on his wide practical musicianship as an orchestral player, chamber and jazz musician. It would not be an exaggeration to claim that he was the jazz bassist most in demand in Finland in the 1970s, and a few of his works are pure jazz compositions. But the compositional techniques and musical means used in the majority of his works originate in an unusual openness for any devices. Along with modern techniques, his source of inspiration includes all the previous stylistic periods in European music, impulses from Oriental music and, of course, jazz. His own instrument, the double bass, has profited especially from his rich inventiveness in finding new means to conjure forth unusual sounds from the instrument, and in applying them in an artistically meaningful and striking way."

Teppo Hauta-aho's music has been performed extensively in Finland and abroad, notably in America, Britain, Germany, France, Czech Republic, Soviet Union, Australia
and Switzerland. He died in Helsinki on 27 November 2021.