Having performed together the evening before in Tchaikovsky’s Sixth Symphony at Symphony Hall, bassists Jeremy Watt and Julian Atkinson teamed up again with a trombonist, violinist, clarinettist and cellist in an engaging and varied programme of classical and jazz duets. More than just a one-off, Watt explained that the concert was part of plans to eventually record a CD of double bass duos making use of pieces from the afternoon’s repertoire.

Stepping into the limelight, he and Richard Watkin began the concert with a performance of Sir Edward Elgar’s Duet for Trombone and Double Bass – a two-minute melodic fugue written in 1887 as a wedding present to Elgar’s friend Frank Weaver who worked in a shoe shop opposite the composer’s father’s music shop in Worcester High Street.

Jeremy Watt was the arranger as well as bassist alongside violinist Nate Bomans for four of the eight pieces from Huit Morceaux, originally written in 1909 by Reinhold Glière for violin and cello. From a deeply unsettling prelude and dance-like intermezzo to a lullaby-like Berceuse and a jaunty scherzo, the collaboration was satisfyingly rhythmical as well as full of colour and tone, each piece different but together sounding like part of a whole.

Next up involved a quick change to a jazz club-like setting with tuxedoed-musicians as Julian Atkinson on bass and Oliver James on clarinet performed Morton Gould’s Benny’s Gig. Written in 1962 for jazz clarinettist Benny Goodman to take on the first US jazz concert tour of the Soviet Union, the performance of the eight-part work was interspersed by a fascinating narration of the tour using extracts and images from the memoirs of bass player Bill Crow.

We learned, for instance, how the audience of 5,000 on the opening night in Moscow looked first at President Nikita Khrushchev before joining him in their applause; how an enthusiasm for jazz already existed from listening to Voice of America, which was banned by the authorities; and how amateur musicians would make their own instruments because of limited supplies.

From swing style to calypso, the musical vignettes pulsed with rhythm as bass line pizzicato and high-pitched clarinet toyed with each other harmonically through complex counterpoint.
It was as if Bill Crow had been looking on approvingly as the 96-year-old appeared on screen afterwards with a recorded video message wishing everyone well.

The final piece saw a return to 1824 as Miguel Fernandes joined Jeremy Watt in a performance
of Gioachino Rossini’s Duet for Cello and Double Bass.

Despite the close range between the instruments, the three-movement work was so full of breadth and tone that you wondered whether a woodwind player or percussionist was hiding.
Commissioned for a soiree, the duet was thoroughly entertaining with opportunities for soulfulness, drama and virtuosity – and one you imagined would make the new CBSO CD.

The CBSO will perform The Music Makers, a celebration of making music, with works including Elgar’s The Music Makers, Benjamin Britten’s The Young Person’s Guide to the Orchestra, Judith Weir’s Music, Untangled, and the UK premiere of Nico Muhly’s Friday Afternoons, at 7.30 pm on Wednesday, November 20th at Symphony Hall.