THE BASSOON
The bassoon is the bass of the oboe group, holding the same place in this family that the violoncello does in the String Family. It is a descendant of the old bass pommer, the bass of the Schalmey Family; but in the various transformations that took place between 1550 and 1600 the characteristic Schalmey family voice disappeared in the bassoon. The tone-color of the bassoon is quite unlike that of the oboe and that of the cor anglais, although it is played with a double reed.
The bassoon is a pipe, or tube, eight feet long conically bored and turned back upon itself so as to reduce its length to about four feet. The instrument consists of five pieces: (1) the bell; (2) the bass, or long joint; (3) the double joint; (4) the wing; and (5) the crook, a small curved tube of metal which holds the mouthpiece with the double reed. The bottom of the instrument is stopped by a flattened oval cork. The pipes meet at the double joint and turn upward. The holes are pierced obliquely so as to bring them within reach of the player’s fingers. There are three holes in the wing-joint and three others in the front of the double joint, to be closed by the first three fingers of each hand. A single hole on the back of the double joint is for the thumb of the right hand. The little finger of the right hand touches two keys; and a series of interlocking keys is on the bass, or long, joint producing the lowest notes of the scale for the left thumb to work.
The player holds the instrument diagonally in the hollow of his two hands, with the left hand uppermost at the level of his breast, and, of course, nearest the bell of the bassoon. The right hand is placed below and behind his right thigh. The double joint of the bassoon rests against the player’s knee. The bell of the instrument points upward.
The bassoon stands in the key of G-major and plays an octave lower than the oboe. Its compass is three octaves and a half, the lowest note being B-flat. The music for it is written in the Bass Clef and in the Tenor Clef for the highest notes. Like the flute and oboe, its deep notes are its fundamental tones; those of its middle register are second harmonics; and those of its highest register are third, fourth and fifth harmonics. The fingering is the same for all octaves. The higher notes are produced by “over-blowing,” so that the air-column in the instrument vibrates differently according to the way the player directs his breath.
“Its lowest tones,” writes Lavignac, “are solemn and pontifical, like an organ pedal. Its medium register has a sweet sonority of some richness but little strength; and its high register has the most expression, but is painful, distressed and dejected. At the same time this instrument has comic possibilities. In the medium, and lower registers certain staccato notes which have been often used have a certain grotesqueness bordering on awkwardness.”
“The bassoon was first used,” says Dr. Stone, “in Cambert’s Pomone, Paris, 1671; but it has gradually risen to the position of a tenor, or even alto, frequently doubling the high notes of the violoncello, or the lower register of the viola. The cause of the change is evidently the greater use of bass instruments, such as trombones and ophicleides, in modern orchestral scores on the one hand and the improvements in the upper register of the bassoon itself on the other. There is a peculiar sweetness and telling quality in these extreme sounds, which has led to their being named ‘vox humana notes.’ We have good evidence even in Haydn’s time that they were appreciated; for in the graceful Minuet of his Military Symphony we find a melody reaching to the treble A. Haydn uses it as one of the most prominent voices of his orchestra.”
Until Mozart’s time the bassoon was little else but an instrument for doubling the bass of the Strings; but Mozart did great things with it. He even went so far as to write a Concerto for it. It is important in his operas, particularly Don Giovanni; in his Requiem; and in his Symphonies.
After Mozart fixed its place in the Orchestra, Beethoven brought it forward and made its part so conspicuous and so elaborate that the performers had to set to work to improve their technique. “Beethoven never failed to employ it largely, reinforcing it, in some cases, by the double-bassoon. The First Symphony is remarkable for the assignment of subject, as well as counter-subject, in the slow movement to first and second bassoons working independently; both afterwards joining with the two clarinets in the curious dialogue of the trio between strings and reeds. The Second Symphony opens with a prominent passage for the bassoon in unison with the bass strings; in the Adagio of the Fourth Symphony is an effective figure exhibiting the great power of staccato playing possessed by the bassoon; in the first movement of the Eighth Symphony, it is employed with exquisite humor and in the Minuet of the same Symphony it is entrusted with a melody of considerable length. Perhaps the most remarkable passage in Beethoven’s writing for this instrument occurs in the opening of the Finale of the Ninth, or Choral Symphony, where the theme of the movement, played by violoncellos and violins in unison is accompanied by the first bassoon in a long independent melody of the greatest ingenuity and interest.”[23]