IMSLP Forums

Hi,
I have an audition coming up, and being a bass I am feeling rather neglected in terms of solo music.
My range is from two octaves below middle C to middle C (pitiful I know, I can push a D).
Are there any ideas for music? It doesn't have to be on IMSLP, modern music is great too.

Thanks!

Hmm...if you had one or two notes higher, you could try for the Shostakovich Michelangelo Suite...that's technically written for baritone, but it's in sort of a limited range. This is an interesting question, I don't think there are many songs written for bass.
Maybe some but not all of the Suite would work. (Of course my mind instantly jumps to Shostakovich.)
Oh, and the Four Verses of Captain Lebyadkin- I think that's written for bass, but it's harder. Yeah, that's maybe a little too epic.
I always think of the tour-de-forces first...

A great piece to pick would be Brahms's Vier Ernste Gesange, Op. 121. It is defianately a beauty and imslp carries it. I am not sure about the range though.

If you want to show off your bass range, you could do any of a million arrangements of the American spiritual, Wade in the Water.

Some Schubert songs got transcriptions for basso/alto on IMSLP, example:
http://imslp.org/wiki/Erlkönig%2C_D.328 ... %2C_Franz)
http://imslp.org/wiki/Winterreise%2C_D. ... %2C_Franz)

I do not know if you also want songs with piano accompaniment.

Look up the literature that Boris Christoff sang.

(I have his LP album of Cui songs -- although I'd have to check whether they might have been transposed from the published editions.)