‘Typically Teppo’ features the music of the legendary Finnish bassist-composer Teppo Hauta-aho alongside works composed to celebrate his 75th birthday at Teppo-Fest (UK) in May 2016. The international project includes five performers from four countries and composers from six countries in a unique CD which celebrates the music of Teppo Hauta-aho, noting his influence on bassists and composers across the world.

Teppo Hauta-aho was born in 1941 and is the most prolific composer in the history of the double bass. He has composed more than 300 works for every ability level and his unique sound world, influenced by classical styles alongside jazz, contemporary and improvisation, produces a rich palette of atmospheric colours, textures and timbres.

Two Dances for double bass quartet employ waltz and reggae styles within a modern but accessible idiom and Elegy-Fantasy in Memory of David Walter, a ‘tour de force’ for double bass quartet, is a seventeen-minute tone poem of momentous breadth and imagination, and unlike anything else in the quartet repertoire. The bleak, expansive landscapes of his native Finland are captured in the music.

Trio Poem Basso II for double bass trio features jazz styles whilst Dan’s Gasparo and Dan’s Gasparo Ballade, both for unaccompanied double bass, were composed to celebrate the glorious tone and solo qualities of Dan Styffe’s unique and priceless double bass, made in Brescia (Italy) in the 1580s by Gasparo da Salò. Modern techniques and influences are used but within a lyrical framework.

Sarah Poole (soprano) is the soloist in works by David Heyes (UK) and Katrien Bos (Netherlands). The silky tone of Sarah’s solo voice, against a pizzicato accompaniment, create wonderfully evocative textures. The five colourful and effective miniatures by Bernard Salles (France) are contrasted by Northern Lights by Simon Garcia (Spain), which is played almost exclusively in harmonics, with Aria by Eric Funk (USA) and Finnish Sketches by David Heyes, both for unaccompanied double bass, emphasising the tonal and sonorous qualities of the 21st-century double bass.