The title track may have originally been performed with orchestra, and the name of the Italian composer Giovanni Bottesini does still turn up occasionally in concert programs, but this CD offers nothing longer than about 10 minutes and instrumentally features only double bass and piano, which makes it salon fare much more than music for the concert hall.

Much of the action takes place comparatively high on the fretwork, which avoids the sound being too far down in the dumps, but gives it that air of a big instrument doing what it is told rather than what is natural. There are limits as to what even Paganini could have done with a double bass, restricted to relative slow motion. A rather plodding Air on the G String by Bach, perhaps, the only familiar tune here, but not the four songs included to show that Bottesini did have more than one string to his bow.

Inevitably they come across as rather sad songs. Respects, though, to Naxos for acknowledging the music of Bottesini, and the earnest performers for giving him his due, but this is one of those CDs for aficionados.