Bottesini war far from being just a star bass-player who had a go at writing for his instrument; indeed after choirboy stage he went pretty well straight to being an all-round musician, with both the conducting and composition of opera a speciality. Originally bass-playing itself was taken up, sensibly, for purely practical reasons: the year he wanted to go to the Milan conservatoire there was only one vacancy, and that was for a bass-player. So he turned his hand (pretty quickly, it seems) to that, and successfully so.
It will not be surprising, then, that the quality of the music on this record is pretty good: not at all just a series of hair-raising variations. Not even in the Fantasia on Beatrice di Tenda, which took my fancy: here was an opera by Bellini which I have never seen on stage, and most likely never will, with its noble tunes brought to life in what may initially seem the most unlikely of ways. All the music of course, not only Beatrice, is helped to life by the quality of Thomas Martin's bass-playing: firm, of beautiful tone, very well phrased and very accomplished in harmonics (a district necessity for this particular repertoire!).
Not a great deal of Bottesini's music, you might say, is at present in the catalogue (one short piece); for a good representation of him obviously this has to be the record, and it is as well that it is of such good all-round quality. It is clearly recorded throughout; and very well documented on the sleeve, with drawings, cartoons and photographs of Bottesini, as well as his bass, a Testore. There is also a reproduction of a London Promenade Concert poster, with Signor Bottesini listed as conductor. But not, however, conducting the ''dance music''; this was handled, understandably, by Herr Johann Strauss, helpfully identified as ''from Vienna''. This is a most welcome record.'