String Pioneers: Giovanni Bottesini—Master of the Double Bass

By Emily Wright | From the May/June 2026 issue of Strings

Picture this. It’s 1839, Milan, Italy. A stage manager at a tiny regional opera house prepares the venue for rehearsal. Today is special, as the low strings will feature bass superstar Giovanni Bottesini leading the section. The man lights a few lamps, then opens the stage door to let the musicians in. Or that was how it was supposed to go. Instead, a shadow looms, obscuring the view of the outside. The shadow belongs to the man of the moment, one G. Bottesini. “Your door is too small! It’s too small for my bass!” he shouts, gesturing to his instrument, a Testore that to this day is still considered one of the finest examples ever produced. An example whose abundant breadth could not be granted access to the stage by any means. 

There are conflicting reports, but apparently the stage manager tries humor at this point, weakly suggesting the bass is actually too big for the door. “It’s one or the other,” snaps the bassist, the other musicians pressing in—whether to sidestep the skirmish or gain a better view, we will never know. From seemingly nowhere, Bottesini brandishes his bow, violence imminent. The stage manager steps back just as the first blow falls in a hail of splintered wood. 

From the vantage of many years, one wonders how the carnage must have appeared, once rehearsal commenced, Bottesini cheerfully heading up the basses. He had (allegedly) hacked the door jamb to pieces with the frog of his bow. Whether in reference to this incident or some quality of its sound, he is said to have named this bow Il Devastatore: The Devastator. There is scholarly prose suggesting this and several other hair-raising Bottesini anecdotes are likely apocryphal, but they nonetheless give rise to an inevitable question: What sort of person leaves behind this kind of a legend? Someone not soon forgotten, to be sure. Here’s what we know, more or less for sure, about Giovanni Bottesini. 

He was born in 1821 in Crema, Lombardy. His father, a clarinetist, was an encouraging musical influence, and the young Giovanni began formal training on the violin at the age of three or four. His instructor quickly recognized the telltale combination of artistic proclivity and obsessive discipline that comprise the warp and weft of a virtuoso’s soul and set about preparing the boy for formal education at the Milan Conservatory. Bottesini’s family was of modest means, making a scholarship a necessity. Alas, the two subsidies available were for bassoon and double bass, and the decision was made to switch. He took to the bass with great aplomb, and by the time the audition rolled around, he was playing well enough to gain admittance—and full tuition—to il Conservatorio di Milano. He was awarded a cash prize in recognition of his solo playing and commenced an astonishing career as a performer, conductor, and composer. 

Paganini of the Double Bass

As a newly minted professional musician, Bottesini’s life after school involved playing in a number of ensembles and venues, especially the opera pit. It was the fashion of the day to provide short musical performances between acts. Bottesini began arranging popular songs for these occasions, adding feats of dexterity and musical cleverness to such a degree that he became known as the “Paganini of the Double Bass.” High praise indeed, considering the audiences who bestowed this moniker had heard Paganini in recent memory. These entr’actes became highly anticipated events in themselves, guaranteeing a sold-out house for the opera and a built-in arena to début his burgeoning opus of original compositions. 

Observers described being disarmed by Bottesini’s expressive, frequently smiling countenance and dazzling physical interaction with his instrument when he performed as a soloist. There was something wildly entertaining about an instrument with a reputation for ungainliness being played so deftly. His first major international assignment was with the Italian Opera Company in Havana, which had a rather colorful history of its own. The opera company was widely believed to be a front for a sugar smuggling operation. An obscure source suggests that the instrumentalists were unaware of the criminal nature of their employer—with the singers likely in the know. 

Unironically, Bottesini composed his first opera, Cristoforo Colombo, in Cuba. The place left a huge mark on the man, and although he claimed to be apolitical (“I’m just a bass player, what do I know?” was allegedly a frequent refrain) his openness to new people and places combined with his magnetic playing made him a sensation everywhere he went, with major performances all over Europe and the Americas, as well as most major cities throughout Italy. His popularity was particularly keen in England, where between 1851 and 1887, he performed at what would become the Proms over 200 times. The consensus is that the infectious quality of Bottesini’s playing combined with the welcoming format of promenade concerts—where audiences were invited to partake in performances while strolling—were a near instant hit.

While certainly a revered soloist, Bottesini and his popularity were not at a remove from the hoi polloi. Throughout his life, no matter where his talent took him, he was a gigging musician, pure and simple. This “day job” approach may have been in part necessitated by a persistent gambling habit, though peers left ample correspondence revealing Giovanni to be a generous friend and patron of charitable causes.

It is hard to say what the zenith of his performing life looked like, but the high point in his conducting career was likely his on/off again friend Giuseppe Verdi’s choice to have Bottesini conduct the world premiere of Aida on Christmas Eve 1871. A formidable operatic composer in his own right, several of Bottesini’s productions were critical successes but did not become essential to the repertoire for reasons as fickle as any encountered nowadays. In fact, one can’t help but be struck by how modern Bottesini’s career appears. His travel calendar required ocean crossings so frequently, it’s easy to forget that even at the end of his life, viable commercial air travel was over half a century away. The sheer volume of entries in his passport would rival any contemporary jet-setting string celebrity’s. Looking back, he seems an archetype for the still-extant role of journeyman musician. 

The Elder Pedagogue

Bottesini’s influence was and is immense. From his performances, legions of young musicians were inspired to study bass. In his compositions, he gifted bassists with notes written with reverence to the map of the fingerboard and its distances in the way only a bass native could. As an instructor in Parma, Bottesini curated a devoted studio of pupils, many of whom went on to have successful careers. In some ways, this was the first generation of bass players to stand atop the same kind of edifice violinists, vocalists, and keyboard players used as a template for achievement. He wrote one of the first attempts at a complete method for bass. While still useful today, it is unlikely to compete with Simandl et al, in large part because the Bottesini method was written for the instrument as configured in the latter half of the 19th century: with three strings tuned differently, depending on where in Europe one was playing.

When placing Bottesini in the pantheon of double bass greats, I am inclined to group him with Johannes Sperger and Domenico Dragonetti. Sperger’s place is largely happenstance. He encountered bass virtuosity first, without precedent, while the two Italians benefited from the path he blazed, changing people’s ideas about what the bass could do. 

Further Listening

A few of my favorite works by Bottesini:

Il diavolo della notte 

Concerto a Due Contrabbassi No. 2

Il lamento della Ghisa (Le chagrin de Jeanne) in D major

Meditazione: Aria on G string from Suite BWV 1068 by J.S. Bach

Concerto No. 2 in B minor for double bass 

—EW