Introducing the French Bassoon

foreign [Music] if you've ever been to a symphony orchestra concert I can guarantee that the bassoon you've seen is almost certainly one of these this is a German bassoon made in the late 1990s you can see that it's pretty big it has a lot of silver keys on it and I know you can't lift it but if I lift it here it's really rather heavy which helps to make a big sound so that projects right to the back of a large Concert Hall [Music] in the orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment we play on instruments that would have been familiar to the composers when they were writing their music as a bassoon player this opens up a lot of questions particularly when playing late 19th century music because essentially we have two different instruments to pick from on the right hand side you will see my German bassoon to be honest fairly similar to the instrument you just saw with me with before but on the left hand side we have a French bassoon a very different creature indeed up until the mid 19th century across Europe most bassoons sounded pretty much the same there would have been some variation in sound and design but if you heard a bassoon in Spain or a bassoon in Germany they were essentially the same instrument it wasn't until composers started making bigger and bigger demands on the players the instrument designers were Keen to develop a new kind of bassoon that could compete with the advances in technology which had helped obos flutes and clarinets in the late 1820s there was a German designer almond Raider who with his fellow countrymen Heckel went off and designed their own kind of bassoon that was very different from the bassoons that had been heard up until this point the bore of the instrument the tube which the air flows down became much wider this meant that the instrument made a bigger sound and could project much more it also gave a darker sound to the instrument which meant that there were more low frequencies rather than a bright sound which people may have been used to hearing they redesigned the fingering system as well moving some of the holes and adding many extra keys this led to improved intonation and a more agile instrument that could work much better in fast passages and evenly across the lower register and the higher register foreign [Music] in the 1870s whilst rehearsing for the premiere of the Meister singer Rickard Wagner said I have never been shown better and more beautiful sounding bassoons than Heckle bassoons foreign whilst in Germany there were instrument makers making their own type of bassoon the French continued with the tradition that had been placed for many decades the French instrument had a much narrower bore pretty much identical to the instruments that have been heard in the late 18th and early 19th century the tone holes remained in pretty much the same place that they had always been and the holes for the air to escape from were still rather small this leads to a softer sound that doesn't necessarily project as well as some of the instruments that we hear today this instrument is the instrument that was known to most composers up until about the 1930s composers that would have thought of this sound when writing their music include Verdi Puccini messian Stravinsky and Elgar who in this photo you can see holding the bassoon he would play in a wind quintet as a Young Man a French bassoon no no the French bassoon definitely has many advantages one of them is that the narrower bore makes it much easier to play high notes bassoon students across the world today learn countless French conservatoire pieces originally written for this instrument that involve exceptionally high notes that on a German system involves countless hours of practice special reads and really complicated fingerings that in a good performance might work however on the French system these notes come out with not considerable effort and have a sweet tone foreign there are a few quirks on this instrument you can actually see where they've drilled new tone holes hoping that it will improve the intonation one of them is here but you can see that they've gone on to fill it in obviously deciding that that wasn't a very good idea this second one here I think they were trying to find a new C sharp because C sharp on the French soon is not the most stable note um they've obviously gone on to fill it in because they didn't think it worked but um the one that I'm left with is still to be honest not the best choice this key up here although it's at the top of the instrument is actually for the lowest note because the air has traveled all the way around and up and a big difference between the two instruments is that on the French bassoon this hole is naturally closed this gives the lower end of the French bassoon a somewhat muffled sound which is in contrast to the German instrument that was developed because as you can see here on the German system this key is left naturally open which opens up the sound a bit more the French bassoon was the most common type of bassoon up until about the 1930s certainly in the UK people were playing it up until the 1960s in professional orchestras the German system was first introduced in 1899 When Hans Richter came to conduct the Halley Orchestra in Manchester he was not a fan of the French bassoon and in fact bought two German bassoons for the raw Northern College of Music handed them over and told them to teach the students this instrument the following year for the orchestral season he bought two Viennese bassoonists over with him to replace the French players in 1928 Toscanini brought the New York Philharmonic to London this gave London audiences the opportunity to hear their bassoon section all on Heckle instruments which was another Catalyst for a slow change from the French system to the German system after the second world war conductors became much more International and they would travel the world hearing different orchestras play with different styles and over time it became common for more and more orchestras to transfer to the German bassoon in this photo you can see the BBC Symphony Orchestra in the early 1940s on the left hand side you have the first bassoon playing a German instrument but the second bassoon is playing a French instrument the third bassoon also a German instrument and in the distance although difficult to see the Contra player is playing a French Contra bassoon I've got here a bassoon teaching manual from the 1950s and it's quite interesting because if you go near the beginning you have a fingering chart which tells you how to play all the different notes and the one published in the book is for the German system but separately they also provided a French fingering chart which just goes to show that both systems were still accepted whereas nowadays I don't know a single bassoon manual that comes with a French fingering chart now in the 21st century the German system has totally dominated the world there are however still some orchestras in France Luxembourg Monaco and Brazil that still play on the French system interestingly in France they have two different words the basson and the forgot to distinguish that these are in fact two completely different instruments here at the oae we are really proud to play these instruments they certainly have their challenges but it's such a rewarding experience and I think really special to hear that French sound once again [Music] [Music] [Music] thank you

Channel: Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment

Views: 26,338

Keywords: orchestra age enlightenment, oae, period instruments

Id: XadY69d40JE

Length: 10min 34sec (634 seconds)

Published: Fri Feb 24 2023