Solo Woodwind Repertoire: Bassoon

The bassoon has a lovely 'woody' sound, which also sounds pure and cantabile. I don't recall listening to solo bassoon works before, but I've listened to works where the bassoon plays a big part, such as the opening to Stravinsky's The Rite of Spring and John Williams' The Five Sacred Trees (concerto for bassoon and orchestra). I really enjoy the timbre of this instrument in all its registers, and I'm looking forward to listening to some solo compositions.

William Osborne - Rhapsody

I couldn't find this piece on spotify, nor could I find the score or any detailed analysis, but I did find a quality live recording on youtube. The piece uses a mixture of high and low register on the bassoon in a quite a slow moving melody, although there are some quite quick scalic runs and some short very nimble passages.

The piece has an often mournful sound, which appears tonal; it sounds like a minor key but not quite the same. I did manage to find out later that it is actually composed using the phygian scale on Bb. To my ears this sometimes gave a middle-eastern sound to the music.

There were no obvious extended techniques that I could detect, although there may well have been some special fingering techniques that would be more apparent to a bassoonist.


John Williams - The Five Sacred Trees

I couldn't find any source of a recording for the other suggested bassoon piece, so instead I decided to revisit The Five Sacred Trees. I have listened to this suite before, but not studied it in any great detail. It is not for solo bassoon, but I'm sure I'll be able to gather some information that would be useful in a solo composition.

The first movement opens with a bassoon cadenza, which is especially useful for what I require. The melody it invokes is solemn, not dissimilar to the feeling garnered from Osbourne's Rhapsody. It explores the range of the bassoon's registers, with a flowing, if often disjunct melody.

The second and fourth movements give the bassoon a pointed, more articulate role, heavily contrasting to their respective previous movements. The second movement features trills and use of the very high register as it imitates the flute.

Even though this suite doesn't demonstrate extended techniques to me, it does show the broad range of character the composer has at his disposal when writing for bassoon. I particularly enjoyed the heavily contrasting movements within the work, something I could maybe do within a single movement when it's time to write a melody for assignment two.