String Bass - also called double bass, upright bass, bass fiddle, bass violin, doghouse bass, contrabass, bass viol, stand-up bass or bull fiddle! - Fujifilm FinePix S1500
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In the beautiful memory of pioneering string bassist Bary Karr, recently passed away, I'm reprinting an essay I wrote in 1997 honoring the heroism of those who take up and devote themselves to this musical leviathan in every sense of the word, first brought to the world's attention by the renowned bassistsDomenico Dragonetti and Sergei Koussevitzky, who played with the Boston Symphony Orchestra from 1924 to 1949. Karr's eulogy by the New York Times can be foundat this link--Click Here My essay follows below:
WHEREIN RESIDES THE POWER OF THE SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA? And why should the issue be worth discussion? Why do we need to verbalize artistic reactions, assign everything a name? Certainly the experience of reading these reactions described is so uplifting, perhaps because they validate one's own reactions or give birth to them at a level we can respect, sculpt intuition into a recognizable form.
Not only do we need experience but tangible reiteration of it (materialization as a function of spirituality?). The soul of man must not only quicken to creation (T. S. Eliot); it needs both an audience and reiteration in other media in order to exist. The gunshot in the empty forest goes after all unheard.
Having justified so abstract a question (since the issue is not to whom to make out the paycheck), can we now deliver a satisfactory answer? Most obviously power resides in the orchestra conductor, but he/she can be replaced quite effectively in most cases, where the musicians are confident of what they are doing. Pace the art of conducting, and the striking silhouette cut by a skillful conductor, who can definitely and in many ways enhance the experience of both performers and audience.
OK, so if not the conductor, who has the power? Is it a collective phenomenon, the conductor's instrument? The concert master gets lost in the crowd (mostly) the minute he/she sits down after the tuning, one in a sea of shining varnish and rippling tones. Can we argue for the percussion section? But the beat can be effected by other sections. Is any part of the orchestra indispensable? The answer is, of course, probably not. I could take off at this point in rhapsodies about the miraculous sound qualities achieved by various instrumental combinations within the symphonic repertoire: flute and harp, cello and oboe, and the astounding power of the cellos and basses when they share a part, especially the melody.
But most lately my thoughts are riveted on the wondrous essence of the bass violin, for many reasons. I have rediscovered, as it were, the security of the very presence of these columns of silent strength (I was once a symphony violinist, 3rd chair in the first section, to my delight).
I used to look up and marvel at the reassuring patience of these standing giants. They reminded me of museum dinosaurs or tornado funnels looming on the horizon, but motionless and eternal. And all they had to do most of the time was pluck a cooperative, monotonous background beat while the rest of us took off in every other dominant, exhibitionistic direction, harmonizing like floral displays. And the weight of those things (15 pounds, but in ponderous distribution), and the size (can be 6 feet), and the power, and the thickness (avg. 3mm, or about 1/8 of an inch) and length of the strings (42-1/2" long). It is such an act of dedication to lug them around, so conspicuous in public, so heavy, so very expensive to maintain.
One could say, they provide an easy way out for a no-talent to participate in an orchestra at some level and dispose of some requirement or other most painlessly, but other instruments could serve that goal as well and in far less exacting a way. So I took to some pop psychology and wondered: do the bass violinists need something large to alternately cling to and lean against them? Are they people who must always stand backstage holding up trees when not their instruments and so in real life hang back and do all the work no one else wants to, uncomplainingly?
Consider that in the entire philharmonic repertoire so few compositions have been written for the bass violin (e.g., concerti by Serge Koussevitzky, early twentieth century, and Domenico Dragonetti, nineteenth century, both bass violin virtuosi, Dragonetti said to be the finest in history).
I heard the Koussevitzky played in competition recently and wondered about everything else related to the experience. There was such effort also, physical effort, in achieving the high notes, such muscular distortion, and think about the calluses that must form to play and vibrate on the tremendous strings.
Beyond that, the sounds achieved by the string bass player were so exquisite I wondered why the instrument has been so neglected by composers. Though seemingly so much lower pitched than the cello, the bass is actually less than an octave lower and achieves its tremendous depth, sounding an octave lower than it is, through size and tone, though there are devices for achieving even lower tones, including compulsory retuning of strings in mid-performance, believe it or not (admittedly rare). The high registers of the bass violin were pure like the cello at its best and, as a matter of fact, lacked the metallic buzz of the two lower cello strings when played by anyone but the most accomplished virtuoso, the way that high-register cello notes improve so greatly on the violin or viola's efforts to achieve the same tones, and the way that a contralto sings her highest notes so much more beautifully than the soprano reaching down to those same tones.
Perhaps the answer is that we need to invent more musical instruments and not allow them intonation beyond a level that ... appeals. Limit each string instrument, e.g., to the two strings that sound the best, usually the higher ones, for whatever reason that is. (Some universal principle must be operative here: something relevant to lower pitches ascending better than higher pitches descending: but who says soprano must be up and bass down? It is more a question of frequency of vibration of strings but also aesthetics: to quicken a rate of vibrations leads to improvement; the inverse process yields the inverse result--can we extend this beyond the vocal and violin realms to other levels of reality? Acceleration is superior to deceleration. It beautifies; deceleration accomplishes the inverse. Can anything so general be valid? Probably not. I wonder what other principles are involved, or whether this is an arm of aesthetics we must trust to the forces of irrationality and gustibus, period.
The tones of the bass violin add a depth and dimension to the orchestral sound we miss when excluded, especially in familiar works like Beethoven's Ninth Symphony (the Choral Symphony, said to have been written for Dragonetti; others include Schubert's Trout Quintet and Richard Strauss's Also Sprach Zarathustra). So given this combined capability, arete (virtue) in combination and concerto solo, why is the bass so neglected--territory virtually untrodden? It certainly tests more of a person's capacities than do other instruments and requires more of the virtues. Its easinesses are in many ways difficult and its difficulties well nigh impossible: a challenge we have yet to ascend.
The high notes have had more than their heyday, a poet might opine. But nothing nurtures more than the ground bass and the leave we may allow it to do more than that. Nothing has ever thrilled me more than those infrequent times when bass carries the melody. On that traditional "note," we have no ground to stand on if not the earth.
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