Two Versatile Bassists Step Into the Limelight

The double bass can seem the most human of all the instruments of the orchestra. It is body-shaped and so large and round that a player practically has to hug it to play it. Its deep, rich, engulfing sound--from being bowed or plucked--is warm and comforting, the lovable murmurings of a bulbous, friendly, cuddly creature. And its lowness of pitch creates yet another comfort: The bass range is the foundation of Western harmony.

The basses in the orchestra are used more than any other instruments to ground the listener, yet it is far too seldom that the bass steps out on its own. Still, there are some extraordinary bassists around, and two of the most remarkable were in town last week. Stefano Scodanibbio, a regular at the Monday Evening Concerts at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, returned to play with Terry Riley, and lifted the instrument into new realms. For him the bass is an instrument of fantasy--he creates an astonishing variety of sounds--and versatility, whether dancing around minimalist improvisations with Riley on electric keyboard or droning in accompaniment to Riley singing ragas.

Equally versatile, but in entirely different ways, is Edgar Meyer, who joined the Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra over the weekend for his Double Concerto for cello and double bass. Meyer has two curiously separate lives, as a country musician who is a Nashville studio regular and as a classical chamber music player who is a member of the Lincoln Center Chamber Music Society. Much of the time this causes a split personality, unless he gets to play his own eclectic music.

Meyer wrote his double concerto, which had its premiere at the San Luis Obispo Mozart Festival in 1995, as a companion piece to Mozart’s Sinfonia Concertante for violin and viola, and that is how the L.A. Chamber Orchestra, conducted by Jeffrey Kahane, used it as well. The Sinfonia Concertante is one of Mozart’s greatest works from his middle years (his early 20s), wonderfully operatic in its solo writing and with a central slow movement of opulent, sensuous beauty.

Meyer’s concerto is slight in comparison. It too has an arresting give and take between the soloists, though of a more competitive nature, but its ideas are few and its bits of crossover into country fiddling tentative and tame.

For the Mozart, the soloists were the orchestra’s concertmaster, Margaret Batjer, a bright and assertive violinist, and its principal viola, Roland Kato, who is a dark-toned (too dark for what Mozart had in mind here) and more reactive player. Their performances were strong and collegial, but score-bound, more chamber music than singing. On the other hand, Meyer and the eloquent cellist Carter Brey, who is principal of the New York Philharmonic, proved captivating, irresistible personalities even when the music was more garrulous than substantive.

Meyer, appearing without jacket and with sleeves rolled up at Saturday’s performance at the Alex Theatre in Glendale, handled his heavy-toned instrument sounding as agile as a fiddle, an amusing folksy style masking the stunning accomplishment of a lavishly fluid singing style. Brey is just as stunning in his more formal way, and his high notes thrill in their sheer lyricism.

Another possible complement to the Mozart Sinfonia Concertante could have been Michael Nyman’s brilliantly obsessive reworking of it in his soundtrack to the Peter Greenaway film “Drowning by Numbers,” but Kahane turned more conventionally to Haydn’s Symphony No. 99, which shares the key of E flat with the Mozart. It was a bold, spotless, enthusiastic performance. Kahane has lifted the spirits of the orchestra, and it has become a delight to hear. The last movement was a gripping race, full of imagination, humor and taken-for-granted virtuosity.