Some people get delightfully embarrassed if you sing a song about them. Think about the feeling you might get when your friends sing you “Happy Birthday”, or when that special someone sang “A Whole New World” to you at the karaoke bar.

And then there are those people who are so self-focused that they feel the need to constantly sing about themselves. This famous aria from Gioachino Rossini‘s The Barber of Seville is practically a love-song that Figaro sings to himself. Does he deserve all this praise? Well, he just might. Try singing along with him at 3:45 – just use the syllable “la”. Not so easy, eh? Not only does he need super-human tongue abilities, he needs to sound good and sing loud at the same time.

Ok, ok, you win – go ahead and sing about how awesome you are. You deserve it.

There’s really nothing weird about singing a song about how awesome you are. Modern-day popular examples include “Ice, Ice, Baby“, “What’s My Name“, “My Name Is” (it’s practically a rite of passage for a hip-hop artist to use a song to promote him/herself).

We’ve got violin concertos a-plenty. We’ve got piano concertos galore. You want cello concertos? We’ve got twenty. But who cares? No big deal. I want more …

When it comes to solo repertoire, some instruments get all the attention (piano and violin). Then there’s the second tier of instruments that get less play time, despite having a solid repertoire of masterpieces (flute, clarinet, horn, trumpet, cello). Then there’s the “only if we have to” group of instruments that rarely get featured in concerts (oboe, bassoon, trombone, viola, organ). Finally, at the bottom, is the “I didn’t know that existed” repertoire – the Double Bass! ***

Giovanni Bottesini is known as the “Paganini of the Double Bass” (that is, a virtuoso that set the standard for great bass playing). Before Bottesini, the bass was seen as purely a support instrument. The cello is the official bass voice of the violin family, and the Double Bass doubles (copies) the cellos an octave lower, giving gravity to the cello part. The bass is a second-cousin-once-removed to the cello – they’re not actually in the same family (this is why the Double Bass has a different body shape from the violin family and a different tuning system.)

Here is the first movement of one of Bottesini’s concertos for the instrument. It is standard, good romantic writing; it’s gorgeously lyrical and really shows off the instrument as something way more than just a supporting voice in the orchestra.

*** To be fair, there is actually one tier of instruments below the Double Bass. It would be the “what the hell are you thinking” group – any instrument whose name has a modifying word in it, like “contra”, “alto”, or “tenor”.

I occasionally play organ music to accompany silent films (and did so at a concert yesterday evening). When I do this, I like to steal borrow melodies from other composers. One of the pieces I used last night was Csárdás – though I admit that I knew nothing about the piece or its composer. (I’ll never forget the first time I heard it, though, under a funny circumstance***).

So here it is: Vittorio Monti‘s only lasting contribution to the Art Music world – but it’s a good one!

*** The funny circumstance: I was teaching at a university, and giving a final exam in Music Theory. The students were silent, hard at work, concentrating deeply. Suddenly, music broke out from the practice room next door – it was a marimba playing the fast section of Csárdás. The music can be a bit silly to begin with, and having it break the solemn silence of an exam made all the students’ heads pop up, eyes wide open – and then we all had a good laugh. I guess you had to be there.