Double Bass Quartets Nos. 2, 3 & 4

"Though today we hear little of the composer, Franz Anton Hoffmeister, it was to him that Mozart sent begging letters. How fortunes have changed. They were almost direct contemporaries, Hoffmeister hardly less industrious as he created a catalogue of compositions that included some fifty symphonies, sixty concertos, and sundry pieces of chamber and instrumental music. It included a series of double bass quartets where the bass replaces the leading violin, and was thus expected to play the solo line with singing portamento. Thematically the three quartets contain nothing to write home about, but in every case they are pleasurable, the Second and Fourth being in four movements, the added Minuet coming second. Though difficult enough, these are not the virtuoso showpieces that we find in the works by Bottesini. As an 'encore', Norbert Duka has made an adaptation of Schubert's sonata for the now long forgotten instrument, the Arpeggione. Now known as a work for cello, where it sits rather awkwardly on the fingerboard, it is even more uncomfortable on the double bass. Hungarian by birth, Duka's mature studies took place in Germany where he has established a major career as a soloist and the principal bass in orchestra of the German Opera Berlin. Throughout the Hoffmeister his intonation is a cut above our expectations, his unnamed instrument producing a most appealing tone. The challenges of the Schubert is probably one step too far, but that equally applies to many cello recordings. He is joined in the quartets by other principals from major German orchestras. The recordings date back to the 1980's, the Hoffmeister available for many years on the Schwann label. Good, honest and well balanced sound."
(Dasvid's Review Corner)

The novelty of Franz Anton Hoffmeister's double bass quartets lies in his substitution of that husky-voiced instrument for the first violin in a regular string quartet line-up. Seldom heard in such a prominent position the double bass reveals itself as a good humoured and surprisingly expressive vehicle for Hoffmeister's amiably melodic writing. It also gives an especially haunting melancholic quality to Schubert's much-loved Arpeggione Sonata, not merely in the beautiful Adagio but also in the more agile outer movements.