Jan Alm

We played Swedish bass player, composer and teacher Jan Alm's first double bass quartet at the UK Bass Club summer course in 1999, where Alm was invited as guest tutor. Our event encouraged him to write this second quartet and the first two movements were played in 2000 at the Bass Club, The work was completed in 2001 and won the International Society of Bassists composition contest.

Each player is given an equal part across the four movements. Having been conceived as a string quartet, it is not a work that finds a single top part playing high and the other parts providing what might be considered 'boring' supporting roles.

Alm's style of writing shows his love of harmony and uses very characteristic enharmonic changes - there is clear influence from the Romantics. As a bassist himself, his writing is perfectly idiomatic and although a lot of it is virtuosic.