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This page contains programme notes for a number of work for solo bassoon. They are posted here for the convenience and use of others: anyone is free to publish any of these notes in a programme, or elsewhere, provided the source is acknowledged. Unless marked otherwise, each of these notes is © Matthew Dodd 2006.

Notes are available for the following works:

Fantasy for Bassoon op. 86.................Malcolm Arnold (b. 1921)

In 1966, Sir Malcolm Arnold was commissioned by the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra to write a set of pieces for bassoon, clarinet, horn, flute and oboe for the Birmingham International Wind Competition, which it was promoting. The final was staged in Birmingham Town Hall in May 1966, with František Herman winning the bassoon class, and the overall prize shared jointly by Maurice Bourgue and James Galway. The choice of composer was an inspired one, as the quality of the resulting pieces shows. They each serve their purpose in presenting extreme tests of the player's skill, and the composer clearly used his knowledge of the instruments to makes particularly awkward technical demands. This was perhaps just as well, considering the very high standard of the entrants. The Fantasy for Bassoon includes rapid scales and series of arpeggios and extremes of dynamic, and, like other works in the set, tests the player's ability to negotiate a variety of contrasting styles. Despite the technical motivation, Arnold succeeds in combining the separate sections into a musically coherent and satisfying whole.

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Sarabande et Cortège.................Henri Dutilleux (b. 1916)

The baroque forms of Sarabande, latterly a stately dance in slow triple time, and Cortège, simply ‘a procession‘, form the structural basis of this early work by Dutilleux.

It was composed in 1942, the year of his first major appointment, to become Director of singing at the Paris Opéra; its dedicatee, Gustave Dhérin, was Professeur at the Conservatoire National de Paris where Dutilleux had already studied for five years, and was to become professor himself in 1970.

There is a strong tradition of French wind writing, in which this piece deserves to enjoy distinction. It is beautifully written, both in its absolute musical content and in its exploitation of musical procedures naturally effective on the two instruments. Both sections are based on simple thematic material which undergoes free elaboration and variation, including two cadenza passages for the bassoon.

It is interesting to note that Dutilleux's adoption of the ‘Sarabande’ form had twentieth century French precedents, in Debussy and Satie, for example. The apparentness of such influences in his early output is partly the reason for Dutilleux's unfortunate condemnation of much of it, including this piece.

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Romance op. 62.................Edward Elgar (1857 - 1934)

Elgar wrote his Romance for Bassoon and Orchestra in 1910, between the First and Second Symphonies (1907-8 and 1909-11 respectively), and in the year in which he also completed his Violin Concerto. It was mostly written on 11th January 1910, when he had been busy working on sketches for the violin concerto. As well as the musical similarities between these works, for example in the opening tuttis and solo entries, and their use of rubato, there is another evident connection: Elgar played both violin and bassoon. He had aspired to become a concert violinist before deciding to concentrate on composition, but had also taught himself to play the bassoon to complete a wind quintet in which his younger brother Frank played the oboe, his friends Hubert Leicester (later to become Mayor of Worcester) and Frank Exton played flute and Hubert's brother William was co-opted to play the clarinet.

It is dedicated ‘To Mr. Edwin F. James’, who gave its first performance in Hereford in 1911, conducted by Dr. George Sinclair, whose dog Dan was the hero of the ‘G.W.S.’ Enigma variation. Edwin James (1861 - 1921) was the Chairman, Principal Bassoonist and a founder member (in 1904) of the London Symphony Orchestra; he and his younger brother, Wilfred - father of another highly regarded bassoonist, Cecil James - were the two leading players of the Elgarian era. All three of these players played the French ‘Buffet’ instrument, which was played almost universally at that time outside German-speaking countries. Elgar would have had their playing in mind when composing his orchestral bassoon parts, in which, as in this Romance, his fondness for the instrument and understanding of its individual voice is evident.

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The Inner Garden (2005).................David Gordon (b. 1965)

The Inner Garden was commissioned by and is dedicated to Miranda and Matthew Dodd, and written in the early part of 2005. It is essentially a four-movement work, with the fourth movement, The Revelation of the Inner Garden, divided into four sections. Obsession takes the form of a 'tango nuevo', after Astor Piazzolla. Like many tangos, it portrays a cheerless, imprisoned state; unlike most tangos it is written in 7/8 time. The Blood and the Fire of Both of Us is additionally dedicated to Romanian artist Mircea Marosin, and is a two-part fugue for bassoon and one finger of the right hand of the pianist, with accompaniment from the whole of the pianist's left hand. The Unknowing Cloud refers to a mystical medieval text, which describes the first experience of our inner world.

This takes us into peace and tranquillity of the inner garden, represented by the purity of sound associated with the baroque era, leading directly to Escaping the shadow, a whirling dance for solo bassoon. Next comes a short section for solo piano, In the Ball of the Hand, an examination of the intricate and infinitessimal. Sixteen Miracles is written like a 17th-century 'unmeasured prelude', in which pitches and the order of those pitches are notated, but rhythms are left to the performers' interpretation. The work, which has begun mired in the toil and sweat of earthly labour ends in a splash of heavenly light.

Programme note © David Gordon 2005.

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Sonate für Fagott und Piano.................Paul Hindemith (1895 - 1963)

This sonata, in a rather different Germanic style to the Telemann, was written in 1938, just one year before Nazi opposition to both his music and his fairly public views about their politics finally forced him to leave his homeland - first for Switzerland and, shortly afterwards, America.

The last five years of this time in Europe saw the composition of the majority of his 25 sonatas for almost all the instruments of the orchestra. They embrace his Gebrauchsmusik principle - that music should be both relevant and useful - and although by no means easy, are not beyond the technical resources of good amateur players, whose importance in the musical world Hindemith held in high regard. Stylistically, they embody a mature synthesis of principles from earlier compositional periods: his neo-classical style with its use of baroque designs and techniques, and a later, more lyrical idiom reasserting the distinct roles of melody and accompaniment.

The 6/8 first movement is built round two themes, the first exploring atonal repetitions, the second a falling dotted rhythm with chord-based accompaniment. In the slow movement a remarkably static bassoon theme is accompanied by an impressionistic piano figure, which lead to a March and Trio. The Trio particularly contains much elaborate - and most effective - counterpoint. Finally, a peaceful Pastorale reinterprets material from the first movement, and where that movement ended in a surprising B flat major chord, this does in a surprising B flat minor one.

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Sonate pour Basson et Piano, op. 168.................Camille Saint-Saëns (1835 - 1921)

Saint-Saëns, after a prodigious childhood during which he performed in a Paris Salon at the age of 4, began to compose at 6 and made his concerto debut at 10, soon established himself as a concert pianist and composer of great popularity, championed by Gounod and considered one of the most progressive French composers of his time.

His success naturally lead to further interests in musical Paris : he did much to establish a flourishing Parisian concert life, and created the Société Nationale de Musique in 1871 for the specific purpose of encouraging contemporary French music.

Against this backdrop, it is curious that in the later years of his life Saint-Saëns became progressively estranged from the younger generation of French composers and their new influences, and staunchly stood by his own musical idiom, characterised by its clarity and Gallic wit.

In the year of his death, he wrote three sonatas, for oboe, clarinet and bassoon. This sonata was the last of the three, in fact his penultimate published work. It testifies to our observations about Saint-Saëns' musical language: the bassoon part follows clear melodic lines, with an economic piano accompaniment which provides a supportive harmonic and textural framework.

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Sonata in F minor.................Georg Philipp Telemann (1681 - 1767)

The baroque bassoon - free of much of the clutter of keywork found on its modern German counterpart and characteristically open and nasal in sound - seems to have found considerable success as a solo voice. For example, of Vivaldi's solo concerti, the 37 surviving works for bassoon are outnumbered only by those for violin.

This substantial work for bassoon and continuo first appeared in a 1728 edition of Der getreue Music=Meister, a fortnightly periodical used by Telemann to publish pieces for a remarkable variety of instrumental combinations. The movements of this sonata are found interspersed with music for violin duet and lute tablatures. They follow the usual slow, fast, slow, fast pattern : the slow are particularly beautiful, the fast quite virtuosic, and all show considerable understanding of the resources of the instrument.

The opening Triste features most effective use of a mournful triplet figure, and the following ternary Allegro also has rhythmic interest. Here, key moments in phrases occupy unexpected beats of the bar and semiquaver figures embellish the main quaver movements. The melodic rise and fall of the Andante leads to a final brilliant Vivace.

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