In January last year I welcomed Thomas Martin's first Bottesini LP (ALH939), a record very similar to this new one but with an alternative selection of the composer's bass solos. The present record, again with Anthony Halstead, has also the same characteristics of its predecessor: a stunning virtuosity of performance harnessed to a repertoire of pieces skilfully composed with precisely that standard of playing in mind. Such a standard is not often achieved on the bass. But here it most emphatically is; and the quality of Martin's playing adds to an almost unbelievable technical command, the bonus of the most sensitive shaping of the music.
Nevertheless, you do not at all need to be a bass-player to enjoy the record; for it provides for the general listener a perfectly sensible way of listening to the splendid tunes of Bellini and Donizetti without, for once, risking a wrong choice of singer. Of course Bottesini makes his own tunes, too, as well as his own arrangements. One of his tunes is sung here by Jaquelyn Fugelle, with the bass restricted to playing an obbligato.
The inclusion of this vocal contribution (Une bouche aimee) is welcome to the ear, especially if the record as a whole is being listened to; it could, for some, help towards a choice between the new record and its predecessor. The choice is otherwise a difficult one: the repertoires are of the same type, the performance are equally splendid, the qualities of recording are eqully good. Only for bass-players is choice actually easy: they must without doubt have both records.'