Duos for Violin & Double Bass

For this recording, Finnish violinist Elina Vahala and Dutch double bass player Niek de Groot have chosen and performed seven pieces, composed by six Europeans and one Korean. When a violin and a double bass come together, two sound spheres collide: particularly in recent times, many renowned composers have been inspired to create highly original realisations of such encounters. When a violin and a double bass perform chamber music together, it is a case of two instruments encountering each other when normally they are poles apart and play together only alongside additional parts and colours. This is where the composers who have come forward for this adventure of a violin and double bass duo link in: should contrasts be accentuated, or should the two parts be united to form one "super-instrument", as Erkki-Sven Tuur had in mind? Should the two instruments be protagonists in a "narrative", or do they appear as representatives of fundamental principles of human nature - as in the yin and yang, as drawn upon by the Korean composer Isang Yun? Whichever path is chosen, pairing the violin and the double bass is so fascinating that even busy composers such as Krzysztof Penderecki and Wolfgang Rihm have written magnificent and highly individual pieces for this combination. Violinist Elina Va¨ha¨la¨ is one of the most sought-after instrumentalists in the international music scene. She made her debut with an orchestra at the age of twelve with Sinfonia Lahti and was later chosen as Sinfonia Lahti's "Young Master Soloist." Dutch double bassist Niek de Groot is one of today's leading soloists. Originally a trumpeter, he started playing the double bass at the age of eighteen. Within an unusually short time he became principal bass with several European ensembles, including a ten-year tenure as first solo bass with the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra.