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Beautiful music! I really enjoyed it. Personally I both like the beginning D in the basses, and the sung part.
Having the initial D in the basses certainly has a totally different effect than having it in the cellos. It doesn't sound as strong and full in the basses, but a lot more fragile and thin, but personally I love that a lot. It definitely shouldn't sound "harsh" with basses, if they are well played. I find basses sound amazing in their higher register. (And of course they could even play quite a bit higher than that.) But of course, intonation is always a bit a problem with (high) basses. If you used cellos you should decide on which string you want that D to be played in any case. On the empty D string it will sound the fullest of course, but you won't have any vibrato, and you wrote pianissimo after all, so using the G string might be better. Or even the C string, which makes intonation harder again, but will make it sound closer to the double bass sound.
But as I said, personally, I'd keep it in the basses, so you get a really thin beginning, and let it expand when the other instruments come in. You could consider a solo though, which will be less problemetic intonation-wise, plus add to the effect of starting out really thin.
Of course it's true that having the basses sing is rather unconventional, and I can't say I can tell how it would sound exactly. But I like the idea, and have seen pieces before where musicians were asked to sing a tone, and it worked fine. I don't really understand how that note would be too low for most of the basses, unless they're all women. Assuming this D is written an octave higher than it sounds (like the rest of the double bass part), is in the range of all normal male voice types, from bass to tenor, and even in the range of some very low altos. Were they trying to sing it -two- octaves below the written note?
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