Rossi: 35 Selected Studies For String Bass.

Rossi: 35 Selected Studies For String Bass, edited by Thomas Martin. International Music Co. (5 W. 37th St., New York, NY 10018), 2005. 67 pp.

If you are an advanced bass player, equally adept with the treble clef as with the bass def, then you need to know this collection of etudes--if you aren't already aware of it. Likewise, if you aspire to become an advanced bass player, this collection is a "must have." Rossi: 35 Selected Studies For String Bass is an easy-to-read, well-organized collection.

Thomas Martin has edited for contemporary publication these 35 studies collected by Luigi Rossi, a mid-19th-century professor at the Milan Conservatory and teacher of the famous bassist, Giovanni Bottesini. Note that this Rossi is not Luigi Rossi, the 17th-century Roman organist and composer of two operas, numerous songs and more than 300 cantatas.

Martin is a former principal bassist with the London Symphony Orchestra, professor at London's Guildhall School of Music and noted maker of double basses. He describes the sequence of this collection as "progressive in the challenges they present."

This Rossi collection includes 11 studies by Rodolphe Kreutzer, 12 by Philippe Libon, three by Joseph Mayseder, one by Giovanni Battista Polledro, four by Ludwig Spohr and four by Pierre Rode. An index to these studies, organized by their composers, would have been most helpful.

Martin has suggested some fingering ideas but otherwise has encouraged the player "to use these excellent studies to explore the many other ways around the problems presented."

A helpful addendum to this publication is a lengthy list of published pieces for double bass and piano, string bass solo, string bass and other instruments and multiple string basses. Reviewed by Dave Willoughby, Elizabethtown, Pennsylvania.