One bass like the other

One bass like the other - Viennese basses
Works by W. A. Mozart, A. Zimmermann & L.v. Beethoven
Concerto Stella Matutina
Matthias Hoffmann - Bass
David Sinclair - double bass
Thomas Platzgummer - baroque cello & conductor
Very little is known about the Viennese double bass virtuoso Friedrich Pischelsberger - and he would probably have disappeared completely into the darkness of music history if Wolfgang Amadé Mozart had not written an exceptionally virtuoso obbligato part for him in the aria Per questa bella mano; this concertante double bass part suggests that Pischelsberger must have been an outstanding expert on his instrument. In this aria from the year of Mozart's death, the double bass competes with the bass voice; in 1791 it was Franz Xaver Gerl who sang this part; a few months later he was to be the first Sarastro in The Magic Flute. In our concert by the Vorarlberg orchestra Concerto Stella Matutina, the internationally successful young Tyrolean Matthias Hoffmann takes on Gerl's role. His partner on the Viennese bass, a type of string bass that flourished in Vienna around 1800, is David Sinclar, a virtuoso of our time on the lowest string instrument. Sinclair also presents one of the few solo concertos for his instrument, a work by the once very popular composer Anton Zimmermann, who worked in Bratislava. Matthias Hoffmann performs further Mozart arias together with the Concerto Stella Matutina. Finally, the orchestra dedicates itself to a key work of the so-called Viennese Classical period, Ludwig van Beethoven's revolutionary Symphony No. 2.