1167: Wies de Boevé on Bottesini, Bow Technique, and Musical Problem-Solving

um well they they um actually i was at some point they did some kind of classical music awards.

And they said like, OK, you're on the shortlist.

Please come to Brussels for this award.

And I mean, this was just after ARD competition and Bottesini competition.

I mean, I won a couple of competitions.

And then came this award.

And I thought like, OK, they just want to, you know, gives like a little statue or something and that's it but so i um and actually at that time i was in germany i was on the on a board of a competition myself i was listening to candidates and then so i left a bit earlier to be actually on time like i organized everything to be on time for this for this award ceremony i went there and i sat in the hall and then like um they just announced basically um i didn't win anything so I was like I came especially from Germany to stitch here and not get anything and then a bit later they just said like you get a recording and I said okay I mean it's way better than having a little statue like I don't care but I can record something and then they again they asked me what I want to record and I had done the Rota concerto before and I want to have it like on a certain theme.

I was thinking about doing a classical concerto CD, but then I thought I have a full symphony orchestra available, maybe better doing something else.

And then actually it was the same motivation as you.

This F sharp minor concerto somehow intrigued me.

I never played it up until that point.

And I just thought, we need to have some recording of it.

I mean, there were some, Ovidio Badilla recorded it.

And I think, yeah, Dani recorded it.

But there were very little, very few recordings, actually.

And so I thought, if I have this opportunity, this would be something good to do.

Also, at that time, I was... already quite busy with checking out the manuscripts in Parma of Bottesini and then I thought like many pieces they just deserved a second thought about them and so this idea came actually my first idea was to also record the first concerto of Bottesini.

I mean, most of the time people consider this F sharp concerto as the first, but it's wrong, it's really the last one.

And he has this concerto di Bravura, which literally nobody plays.

There's also some reasons for that, but I mean, it's quite cute.

I think it could work But then, unfortunately, there's just no original orchestration from me.

And so I wanted to only do original orchestrations by Bottesini.

So then I took out this Concerto di Bravura, and then I put Ala Mendelssohn, which is also the first concerto.

and

then the grand duo