Ödön Rácz MY DOUBLE BASS

Ödön Rácz was born in Budapest on 6 September 1981 and began to learn to play the double bass at the tender age of nine.
He continued his studies at the St. Stephan Music Conservatory with Gergely Járdányi, a student of Ludwig Streicher.
In 2001 he transferred to the University of Music and Performing Arts Vienna where he was accepted into the class of Alois Posch.
Following a successful audition, Ödön Rácz joined the double bass group of the Vienna State Opera Orchestra on 1 September 2004. He has been double bass soloist with the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra and the Vienna State Opera Orchestra since 2009.
The latest album from Ödön Rácz, My Double Bass showcases the eponymous instrument’s strengths and versatility in music spanning continents from Bottesini, Piazzolla, and Rota. Rácz collaborates with Noah Bendix-Balgley, the American violinist and present concertmaster of the Berlin Philharmonic, alongside the Franz Liszt Chamber Orchestra under the baton of Speranza Scappucci, the general music director of the Opéra Royal de Wallonie in Liège.

Ödön Rácz / Franz Liszt Chamber Orchestra CONCERTOS FOR DOUBLE BASS

Ödön Rácz was born on September  6, 1981, in Budapest and began his study of the contrabass at the state grade school at the age of nine. In 1994 he performed his first public solo concert at the Music Academy in Budapest, after which he continued his study at the Music Conservatory St. Stephan with Gergely Járdanyi, a student of Ludwig Streicher. In 2001, he transferred to the University of Music and Performing Arts in Vienna, where he joined the class of the Philharmonic's long-time principal contrabassist, Alois Posch. Following a successful audition, he joined the contrabass section of the Vienna State Opera Orchestra on September 1, 2004. In 2009 he advanced to the position of principal contrabass.

Already at an early age Ödön Rácz was a prize winner at numerous competitions, such as that of Hungarian Television (1996), the Euro Grand Prix (2000), the International Johann Prunner Competition (2002), and lastly obtained the third prize at the prestigious ARD Competition (2003). After having already released his first recording featuring works of Giovanni Bottesini, Johann Matthias Sperger and Hans Fryba, in 1997 for the Lamati label, he recorded the Double Concerto of Bottesini for Hungaroton in 2003. Ödön Rácz has also appeared as soloist with the Munich Chamber Orchestra, the Bavarian Radio Orchestra and the Hungarian Virtuoso Orchestra.

Andreas Ottensamer BRAHMS The Hungarian Connection

This album explores Brahms’s lifelong fascination with Hungarian idioms. The programme, following the Quintet, comprises a series of arrangements by the group’s cellist Stephan Koncz, which gradually loosen the strict discipline of a classical chamber group, moving towards the freely expressive style of a Hungarian restaurant band. The arrangements are marvellously well done, and the sequence ranges from the comfortable warmth of Brahms waltzes to the distinctly exotic sound of the Transylvanian medley. (Listeners will find some of these melodies familiar; they appear in Bartók’s Romanian Dances.) The Leó Weiner pieces, originally for clarinet and piano, transmit an atmosphere of peasant music, while the Hungarian Dances are arranged to give the impression of a gypsy band, with spectacular solo contributions from clarinet, violin and cimbalom.

The performance of the Quintet is a fine one, with lovely clarinet tone, excellent overall sound and a deep understanding of the work’s varied character. Andreas Ottensamer appreciates the need for some rhythmic freedom, not least in the elaborate Hungarian music in the Adagio, but I don’t find his rubato as convincing as Reginald Kell’s in his wonderful 1937 recording with the Busch Quartet – Kell is better at keeping the listener aware of the underlying rhythmic framework. And in the finale, I feel there’s a miscalculation in slowing up for the third and fourth variations; this takes away from the tragic effect of the poco meno mosso marked when the first movement’s theme is recalled. But it’s a fascinating issue, with playing of mastery and versatility. (Gramophone)