page_title: Double bass
section_title: 1800s
hierarchical_section_title: Double bass / Classical repertoire / Solo works for double bass / 1800s
caption_attribution_description: Deutsch: Der Italienische Kontrabass-Virtuose Giovanni Bottesini (1821-1889) mit seinem Testore-Bass English: Portrait of the composer and double bass player Giovanni Bottesini (1821-1889) with his favourite double bass, built by Carlo Antonio Testore in 1716. Photo taken around 1865.
context_page_description: The double bass, also known simply as the bass, is the largest and lowest-pitched bowed string instrument in the modern symphony orchestra.
  The bass is a standard member of the orchestra's string section, as well as the concert band, and is featured in concertos, solo, and chamber music in Western classical music. The bass is used in a range of other genres, such as jazz, 1950s-style blues and rock and roll, rockabilly, psychobilly, traditional country music, bluegrass, tango and many types of folk music.
  The bass is a transposing instrument and is typically notated one octave higher than tuned to avoid excessive ledger lines below the staff. The double bass is the only modern bowed string instrument that is tuned in fourths, rather than fifths, with strings usually tuned to E₁, A₁, D₂ and G₂.
  The instrument's exact lineage is still a matter of some debate, with scholars divided on whether the bass is derived from the viol or the violin family.
  The double bass is played with a bow, or by plucking the strings, or via a variety of extended techniques. In orchestral repertoire and tango music, both arco and pizzicato are employed.
context_section_description: In the 19th century, the opera conductor, composer, and bassist Giovanni Bottesini was considered the "Paganini of the double bass" of his time, a reference to the violin virtuoso and composer. Bottesini's bass concertos were written in the popular Italian opera style of the 19th century, which exploit the double bass in a way that was not seen beforehand. They require virtuosic runs and great leaps to the highest registers of the instrument, even into the realm of natural and artificial harmonics. Many 19th century and early 20th century bassists considered these compositions unplayable, but in the 2000s, they are frequently performed. During the same time, a prominent school of bass players in the Czech region arose, which included Franz Simandl, Theodore Albin Findeisen, Josef Hrabe, Ludwig Manoly, and Adolf Mišek. Simandl and Hrabe were also pedagogues whose method books and studies remain in use in the 2000s.
caption: The virtuoso nineteenth-century bassist and composer Giovanni Bottesini with his 1716 Carlo Antonio Testore bass
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