Roman Patkoló - Sperger: Orchestral Works (2020)

Even 20 years ago, even in his place of work, Ludwigslust, where he held a prominent position in the famous court chapel of Duke Friedrich Franz I for a quarter of a century, nobody knew of Roman Patkolo’s extraordinary fellow citizen and most important double bass player of the Vienna School: Johannes Matthias Sperger! The “Sperger competition” for double bass, which has been taking place every two years since 2000, has not only drawn attention to Sperger, but above all to his compositional legacies. No double bass player has treated the instrument as virtuoso and compositionally as versatile as Sperger. This is evidenced by his 18 double bass concerts, of which the famous Slovak double bass player Roman Patkoló devotes himself to the 2nd and 15th concertos. The release is complemented by Symphony No. 30, in which the absolute closeness to Haydn's tonal language is striking. The concerts offer spirited, striking and profoundly moving melodies and extremely virtuoso sequences. In addition to Johann Baptist Vanhal's double bass concerto, the 15th concert is now one of the most valuable and now much played classical double bass concertos.