Scored for Double Bass & String Orchestra.

C major edition - for double bass in ORCHESTRAL TUNING.

Elegia was first published in Bottesini's Method for Double Bass to illustrate the lyrical capabilities of the instrument, and was rumoured to be the composer's favourite work. It has been recorded more than any other work by Bottesini and is his most attractive piece for bass. Edited by Frantisek Posta. This is ideal for any bassist of about Grade 8 level who is interested to learn the entire range of the double bass. Very popular with adventurous young bassists.

"Here is an excellent edition of a staple of our solo repertoire." (ISB)

The edition with piano is published with accompaniments for both solo and orchestral tunings. Also available in editions for double bass and string orchestra [RM251 - Solo tuning / RM252 - Orchestral tuning] which are also playable with string quartet or quintet accompaniment. The string version is Bottesini's own arrangement of the work.

Performance Level: 8;Advanced

"How he bewildered us by playing all sorts of melodies in flute like harmonics, as though he had a hundred nightingales caged in his double bass... I never wearied of his consummate grace and finish, his fatal precision, his heavenly tone, his fine taste. One sometimes yearned for a touch of human imperfection, but he was like a dead shot; he never missed what he aimed at, and he never aimed at less than perfection." [H.Haweis, 1888]

Giovanni Bottesini was called the 'Paganini of the Double Bass' and was the finest double bass soloist of the 19th-century. He was born in Crema (Lombardy) on 24 December 1821 and studied at the double bass at the Milan Conservatoire with Luigi Rossi, alongside harmony and composition with Nicola Vaccai (1790-1848) and Francesco Basili (1767-1850). His remarkable career as a soloist began in 1839 and lasted fifty years, taking him to every corner of the world. From Italy, his travels took him to Cuba (1846), USA (1847), England (annually from 1849), Egypt, Ireland, France, Germany, Russia, Mexico, Spain, Belgium, Monte carlo and many other countries throughout a long and distinguished career.

Bottesini was also famous as a composer writing at least 13 operas (Cristoforo Colombo, 1847 / Il diavolo della notte, 1856 / Ali Baba, 1871 / Ero e Leandro, 1879), a Messa da Requiem (1880) and an oratorio, The Garden of Olivet (1887 - first performed at the Norwich Festival), works for orchestra, 11 string quartets, string quintets, songs and many virtuoso works for double bass. As a conductor he is remembered primarily for directing the first performance of Verdi's Aida in Cairo in 1871, but was also a repsected composer of Italian opera, including seasons in Mexico, Paris, Palermo, Barcelona, London, Buenos Aires and Parma.

Bottesini's music for double bass is still at the heart of the solo repertoire into the 21st-century, even though his orchestral and operatic music has generally fallen from favour, but his Elegia for double bass and piano is one of the most recorded works of the 20th-century.

Giovanni Bottesini died in Parma on 7 July 1889.