Divertimento concertante for Double Bass and Orchestra

Rota worked on the Divertimento concertante between 1968 and 1973 and dedicated it to Franco Petracchi, the double bass player who did more than anyone of his generation to establish the instrument as a soloist. Ricordi published it. The scoring is deliberately light — pairs of woodwind, two horns, one trumpet, timpani and strings — so that the bass is never covered, and the four movements borrow their titles and gestures from eighteenth-century models while the harmony stays firmly Rota's own. It has become the most played concertante work for double bass written since Bottesini.