Patrick Suskind's excellent play, 'The Double Bass' (1981), is a funny
and touching look at life as a Bass-player. I thoroughly recommend it. An
English version is published by Diogenes Verlag AG through Big Apple Tuttle-Mori
Agency Inc.
My bass once took the title role in this play, see below!
Concerto for Double Bass
He is a drunk leaning companionably
Around a lampost or doing up
With intermittent concentration
Another drunk's coat.
He is a polite but devoted Valentino,
Cheek to cheek, forgetting the next step.
He is feeling the pulse of the fat lady
Or cutting her in half.
But close your eyes and it is sunset
At the end of the world. It is the language
Of dolphins, the growth of tree roots,
The heart-beat slowing down.
John Fuller, b. 1937
Taken from 'Poems on the Underground.'
'Romance with a Double Bass' starring John Cleese. I haven't seen it, but it is apparently funny and informative. Did you know that Brahms' father was a bass player?
