The double bass continues to possess a certain terra incognita. Although there are a few well-trodden paths: familiar are both the traditional accompanying role that the instrument plays in classical repertoires, in jazz, and folk music, as well as the extreme virtuoso, often acrobatic dexterity required of a musician when the double bass takes on a solo role on the concert stage.

These new compositions written for Edicson Ruiz by Heinz Holliger, Rudolf Kelterborn and Roland Moser illuminate a few new landing points on the dark continent of the double bass. Of course they are not totally without presuppositions, a fact demonstrated by a few of the previously unknown historical works on this CD, which (with the exception of Elliott Carter’s Figment III) are recorded here for the first time.

The Cinque Frammenti (1961), written by Donald Martino (1931-2005) for oboe and double bass, manifests an encounter: the work is dedicated to two superb American protagonists of contemporary postwar music: Josef Marx “with his fire Hoboe” (Stefan Wolpe) and Bertram Turetzky, who rediscovered the double bass as a solo instrument and initiated what is by now an overwhelming number of new compositions.

The fragments, however, are anything but a spectacular celebration of these pontifical interpreters or display of their extraordinary abilities. The music has no immediately obvious Salti mortali to offer. It is instead a highly differentiated intimate dialogue leaning towards introspection in a rare constellation of oboe and bass that appears to be structured by a few merging points.

Martino internalized the serial technique and music writing process into the free declamatory composition-style of these fragments, calling to mind his tutelage under Luigi Dallapiccola. But are these really “fragments”?

They certainly don’t seem fragmentary, as they are characterized by a generous time articulation and spaciousness out of which the duo partnership is able to express itself. In the fourth fragment, a brief condensation evolves into a very quietly played “il più presto possible” pattern, which quickly reopens into a relaxed Allegretto.