The Heritage Series series
The history of the double bass features many player-composers who created a wealth of music for bassists of all abilities. Recital Music publish a wide and eclectic range of music by these important figures from the history of the instrument, particularly from the 19th and early 20th-centuries, and more works are in preparation. Some names are well known today, others almost forgotten, but each made a valuable contribution to the repertoire of the double bass and helped create a unqiue repertoire which deserves to be performed.
First published in 1927, Caprice No.1 is dedicated to the Austrian double bass virtuoso Joseph Prunner (1886-1969), who taught at the Bucharest Conservatoire of Music for many years. The piece offers a great technical 'workout' for the progressing bassist and uses much of the range of the solo double bass in a tonal and traditional idiom.
Playable with or without piano accompaniment, Caprice No.1 offers much for the bassist and is ideal for anyone with a confident knowledge of thumb position. Chordally influenced and written in the style of a 19th-century concert study, Caprice No.1 would be suitable for any post-grade 8 bassist looking for new and accessible challenges.
Ideal as both recital and educational repertoire, each of the three Nanny caprices has numerous technical challenges and they have been out of print for far too long. This new edition includes piano accompaniments for both solo and orchestral tunings.
Edouard Nanny was an important French double bassist and teacher, also composing and transcribing many works for double bass. He was born in Saint-Germain-en-Laye on 24 March 1872 and he studied at the Paris Conservatoire with Professor Verrimst, also teaching there from 1920-1940.
He performed often as a soloist, also working as an orchestral bassist with many orchestras such as the Paris Symphony Orchestra, Concerts Lamoureux and the Orchestra de l'Opera Comique, and in 1901 he founded the Henry Casadeus Society of Old Instruments, chaired by Camille Saint-Saens, and intended to revive the works from the past centuries.
Nanny's Method for double bass is still in print, over 90 years since its first publication and both volumes contain a wealth of excellent technical studies and exercises which are as relevant today as they were in the 1920s. His other volumes of studies are mostly out of print and Recital Music plan to reprint some of his orginal works for double bass, transcriptions and educational music to keep alive the name of Edouard Nanny into the 21st-century.
Edouard Nanny died in Paris in 1942.
