Giants & Gods - Five Quartets for Young Bassists

Five engaging and appealing quartets which make effective use of a range of textures and timbres, introducing simple and accessible harmonics in an easy and unthreatening way. The composer hopes that the extended sonorities presented in these quartets will enable young bassists to conjure up in his own mind's eye some of the imagery depicted in these five quartets. They have been performed with great success by Michael Montgomery's double bass students and offer effective study and concert repertoire for bass quartet, also playable by larger forces.

Giants & Gods were premiered at Wells Cathedral School (Somerset, UK) on 29 September 2013 by Pete Canter, Richard Dunn, Matthew Green, Ben Groenevelt, David Heyes, Josie Jobbins, Rob Lillis, Hazel Owen, Joe Prindl, Jim Rintoul, Thea Sayer and Isabelle Woolcott

1. Gargantua
Known for their great intellect and capacity for food and drink as well their incredibly large size, the giant king Gargantua and his son Pantagruel were the subjects of many a yarn in the series of five novels written by Francois Rabelais in the 1530s, an author who loved to poke fun at the way of life of his French contemporaries.

2. Harmonia
We are told by the ancient Greeks that Harmonia, the daughter of Aphrodite (the goddess of love) and Ares (the god of war), was a benevolent deity who sought to soothe strife and discord and preserve cosmic serenity.

3. Belugas
Belugas, among the most social of all whales, have long been known to be great vocalizers who communicate with one another via a sophisticated assortment of sounds that include clicks, chirps, grunts, squeals, screeches and whistles, oftentimes making such a potpourri of song that they have earned for themselves the nickname "sea canaries."

4. Luna
The ancient Romans believed that the moon was a goddess, whom they named Luna, and she drove her chariot across the heavens lighting up the night time sky. Of her Homer writes, in his Hymn to Selene (as Luna was known to the Greeks), "From her immortal head a radiance is shown from heaven and embraces earth; and great is the beauty that arises from her shining light."

5. Gibraltar
The giant monolithic rock that is the single most distinguishing landmark of Gibraltar, according to the ancient Greeks, is in fact the northernmost of the "Pillars of Hercules," formed when this son of Zeus, on his way to the Garden of the Hesperides, smashed through the Atlas Mountains that had up to that time separated the Mediterranean Sea from the Atlantic Ocean.

Double bassist Michael Montgomery, a student of Robert Rohe and Lucas Drew, has a Doctor of Musical Arts degree, played in the Florida Philharmonic Orchestra for many years, and now lives in the Ozark Mountains of Arkansas, where he teaches at the University of Arkansas Fayetteville and the Suzuki Music School of Arkansas. His articles have been published in American Suzuki Journal, Bass World, and Pastoral Music.