Grieg Cello Sonata… on double bass!

Belgian double bassist David Desimpelaere and his pianist brother Erik Desimpelaere perform Grieg’s Sonata in A minor op.36, in their arrangement for double bass.

David Desimpelaere has been exploring how to transcribe Grieg’s cello sonata for double bass over the last few years, while staying as close as possible to the original cello part. In his May 2024 Technique feature in The Strad, where he discussed creative fingering for double bassists, Desimpelaere said his brother’s compositions have challenged him to think more deeply about effective and expressive fingering.

’When I return to standard bass repertoire, I find that many of the solutions I have devised for his music are useful in this context too,’ he said.

’Historically the bass has not habitually been considered a solo instrument, partly because of its register and partly because the distances we have to cover are huge. So, do we go for big shifts on one string as has been customary, or do we play higher up the fingerboard where the distances between the fingers are smaller?’

Desimpelaere is the principal bass of the Lucerne Symphony Orchestra and professor of double bass at the Lucerne School of Music and Ghent School of Arts. He studied with Rinat Ibragimov at London’s Guildhall School of Music and Drama, Božo Paradžik at the Freiburg School of Music and Frank Coppieters at the Brussels Conservatory of Music.

He performs on modern basses by Marco Nolli (Cremona) and Derek High (Schotland/Reutlingen), and uses a new bow made by Adriano Massari (Bologna).

Playing

In The Best of Technique you’ll discover the top playing tips of the world’s leading string players and teachers. It’s packed full of exercises for students, plus examples from the standard repertoire to show you how to integrate the technique into your playing.

Teaching

The Strad’s Masterclass series brings together the finest string players with some of the greatest string works ever written. Always one of our most popular sections, Masterclass has been an invaluable aid to aspiring soloists, chamber musicians and string teachers since the 1990s.

Calendars

The Canada Council of the Arts’ Musical Instrument Bank is 40 years old in 2025. This year’s calendar celebrates some its treasures, including four instruments by Antonio Stradivari and priceless works by Montagnana, Gagliano, Pressenda and David Tecchler.