It’s nice to have a genius for soloist at the opening concert of the Portland Symphony Orchestra’s Tuesday night series at Merrill Auditorium.

Edgar Meyer can make the double bass do everything but talk, and he came close to that, too, in the original encore “Frog Like,” which he’s been “fooling around with” for 20 years or so.

“Frog Like,” which seems to have some resemblance to the “Frog Legs” rag, is played entirely on the plucked strings, like most jazz bass, while the two classical compositions on the program, the Bottesini Concerto No. 2 for Double Bass and Orchestra in B Minor, and Meyer’s own Concerto No. 1 for Double Bass and Orchestra in D Major, were played with the bow.

I was a bit disappointed with the Bottesini, one of the holy grails of virtuoso bass playing, not because of any defects in the performance but because the work itself never seemed to transcend the role of a conventional 19th-century display piece.

The cadenza in the first movement was incredible, but not particularly exciting, and the operatic slow movement, while lyrically sung, had a rather pedestrian melody. 

Fortunately, Meyer is also a composer, and his own concerto demonstrated ways in which the instrument could be shown off to better advantage, beginning with a bluesy opening solo that was well incorporated into the classical three-movement form. 

Meyer also has a sense of humor, and one of the high points of the concerto is the second movement’s bass sostenuto melody against pizzicatti in the strings, reversing the typical role of the instruments. The rhythmical middle section, an orchestral solo, clears the air for the folksy finale, which also has echoes of Indian music.

For the ultimate musical frisson, Meyer demonstrated some unbelievable double stops that combined the lowest bass notes with a violin-like treble. He can also imitate the timbre of the oboe with uncanny precision.

After intermission, music director Robert Moody and the orchestra breathed new life into the tragic Tchaikovsky Symphony No. 4 in F Minor, Op. 36.

The strong final movement provided the same catharsis as Greek tragedy in its depiction of a fate so implacable that it turns a Russian peasant wedding into a funeral procession.

The first movement of the Schumann Fantasie that Laura Kargul played the other night was originally entitled “Ruin.” The finale of the Tchaikovsky should be called “The Triumph of Doom.”

Christopher Hyde’s Classical Beat column appears in the Maine Sunday Telegram. He can be reached at:

classbeat@netscape.net