Baroque masterpiece for orchestra (with a great bassoon part)

Jean-Féry Rebel (1666~1747) was a child prodigy violinist who studied composition with Jean-Baptiste Lully and served as court composer for Louis XIV.  At age 71 he came out of retirement to produce a shocking ballet, Les Élémens, in which he set out to depict the settling of creation into its natural order.

Rebel wrote of the work :“I have dared to link the idea of confusion of the Elements with that of confusion in Harmony. I have risked opening with all the notes sounding together, or rather, all the notes in an octave played as a single sound”.  Yes, he really does begin the piece with dissonance - the first "tone cluster" in the history of music!  The man was indeed a rebel.

Although the original score is lost, fortunately the parts (or some of the parts) were preserved.  The bassoon part, assuming it's original, was written for a virtuoso, as evidenced by the following passage in the Chaconne, in cut time:

This reminds me of an intriguing fact I read recently.  Apparently double-tonguing used to be common on the bassoon in bygone eras, which explains some rapid tongued bassoon passages written by Handel, Vivaldi and of course Beethoven.  In more recent times, at least over the past century, double tonguing on the bassoon fell out of favor, possibly due to the fact that oftentimes it doesn't sound very good due to the presence of the reed in the mouth.  During the past 20 years or so, however, double tonguing has again become an important aspect of bassoon technique, fortunately for any bassoonist performing Les Élémens.

There is also a movement featuring the bassoon as soloist: 

Here's a performance of the entire work, with a dancer:




If you live anywhere near Columbus, Ohio, please do come to hear the Columbus Symphony with Music Director Jean-Marie Zeitouni perform this piece live on Friday, Saturday or Sunday in the Southern Theatre.  Here are the program details and ticket-buying links:.

Masterworks 2: In Nature's Realm 2012-13 Masterworks Series Jean-Marie Zeitouni guides you through Beethoven's enchanting landscapes of the countryside in the refreshing Pastoral Symphony. Even though written in the 1700's, Jean-Frey Rebel's surprisingly contemporary tone poem Les élémens (the elements), depicts the creation of the world and all its creatures. The program is completed by Rossini's William Tell Overture painting a musical picture of a Swiss Alps dawn, storm, pastoral calm, and the famous cavalry charge gallop. Jean-Marie Zeitouni, conductor Program: ROSSINI Overture to Guillaume Tell (William Tell) REBEL Les élémens BEETHOVEN Symphony No. 6 in F Major, Op. 68, Pastoral

Venue: Southern Theatre Friday Oct. 19, 2012 - 8 pm Satuday Oct. 20, 2012 - 8 pm Sunday Oct. 21, 2012 - 3 pm Masterworks Series Sponsor:

The Cleveland Orchestra bassoon section's newest member

In case you haven't heard the news, Billy Hestand is the winner of today's audition for second bassoon of The Cleveland Orchestra!

I had the good fortune to hear Billy play through the audition material a couple of days ago when he stopped in Columbus on his way to the Cleveland audition.  What a thrill it was to hear a bassoonist who was on the verge of winning a position in one of the world's greatest orchestras.  Clearly, he played like a winner.  He had what I would describe as the Cleveland sound - very beautiful and refined - never out of control or the slightest bit crass.  The beginnings and releases of his notes were subtle and perfectly controlled.  He found the right character for each excerpt, showing total command of the orchestral repertoire.  He was ultra prepared, calm and confident.

That's what a winner sounds like.  Congratulations, Billy!

William Hestand has been principal bassoon of the Brooklyn Philharmonic since January 2009, and has played second bassoon in the Lancaster Festival Orchestra since the summer of 2008.  An active freelancer, William has been heard in performance with The New York Philharmonic, The Orchestra of St. Luke’s, American Composer’s Orchestra, and The Delaware Symphony Orchestra, and has performed under the baton of Pierre Boulez, Kurt Masur, Christoph Eschenbach, and Pinchas Zuckerman.  William received both his bachelor of music and master of music degree from the Manhattan School of Music where he studied with Patricia Rogers and Kim Laskowski.  An active chamber musician and solo recitalist, he has performed internationally for audiences in The Netherlands, The Dominican Republic, and has been heard at Carnegie Hall’s Weill Recital Hall.



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Orchestral Baroque ornamentation

It's easy for a symphony musician to feel a bit like a fish out of water when performing Baroque repertoire. It's not unheard of for the training of classical musicians to include no Baroque performance practice whatsoever.  Sure, most of us have listened to Baroque recordings, but oftentimes contemporary performance practice is applied to Baroque repertoire.

The Columbus Symphony has performed a number of Baroque works recently with our Music Director Jean-Marie Zeitouni in which we did actually follow Baroque performance practice.  (If you'd like to hear an example, InstantEncore is streaming our  Best of Baroque concert.)  But I haven't had enough experience in the Baroque realm to be able to state that I'm comfortable with it yet.

Earlier this month I had the opportunity to perform with another orchestra.  One of the featured works was the Vivaldi Concerto for Flute, Oboe and Bassoon "La Tempesta di Mare" RV 570.  The first movement is featured in this video by La Orquesta Sinfonica "Kronos":




None of the recordings I found of this work had much, if any, ornamentation going on in the solo bassoon part, so at first I was planning to just play the printed notes.  But I have always been fascinated by Baroque ornamentation.  When I closely examined the bassoon part it appeared as though someone had penciled in some ornamentation which had been erased.  At first I ignored it, but eventually I became obsessed with the notion of adding ornamentation to my part.

I found a couple of YouTube videos of the piece which were pitched at A=440, and I played along.  I really liked adding ornamentation, and practiced doing so.  At first I used the faint traces of ornamentation which had been erased from my part, and using those markings as examples, I came up with some fairly elaborate ideas.  There wasn't enough room on the part to write out those elaborate ideas, so I wasn't sure what to do?  Should I write out a whole new part? Should I even be trying to plan the ornaments before I knew the tempos?  Or should I just "wing it"?

And how exactly does one "wing it" anyway?   How do we learn how to improvise ornamentation?  The only way I know of is to listen to examples.  When I was a student at Eastman I spent many an hour in the music listening library learning how to be a musician.  I was mesmerized by a recording of oboist Leon Goosens playing the Bach Arioso BVW 1056.  It included ornamentation which is forever embedded in my brain.

It's easy to find examples of Baroque ornamentation on YouTube.  Here's a gorgeous example by German oboe virtuoso Burkhard Glaetzner:



On the day of the first rehearsal of the Vivaldi Concerto for Flute, Oboe and Bassoon "La Tempesta di Mare" I had still not figured out what I was going to do......I wanted to use ornamentation, but fully expected that the conductor would put the keibash on that.  After all, I have never before used ornamentation in the orchestra.  I had other things to worry about anyway, such as whether I would double-tongue or single-tongue the many consecutive 16ths.

During the initial read-through of the first movement, I was a complete and utter coward.   I played it straight, without a single added note.  Luckily for me, we went back and read it again.  This time emboldened, I found myself adding notes and flourishes here and there which seemed to fit, kind of playing it by ear.

When we finished that run-through, I braced myself for the conductor to ask what on earth was going on with the bassoon.  To my complete surprise, he exclaimed that he loved the ornamentation in the bassoon!

The tempo was faster during the performance, which is one of the reasons why it's so exciting to be an orchestral musician.  (I mean that!  I love the thrill of having to adjust at the last minute as the conductor and musicians find themselves caught up in the moment.)  This meant that I had to switch to double-tonguing and it also meant that the ornamentation was different from what I had in mind.  It was a thrilling performance, the type that reminds us of why we chose to be musicians.






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A highly recommended new composition for bassoon & string trio

 

My Columbus Symphony colleague violist Brett Allen recently wrote a blog post about his new composition for violin, viola, cello and bassoon.  Brett and I have already performed it with Quartet Amici here in Columbus.  It was challenging for each instrument, but the piece is a lot of fun to put together and is extremely appealing to the audience.

Here's Brett's explanation of his new piece, 4amici:

4amici: Quartet for Violin, Viola, Cello & Bassoon

As unusual as the quartet combination of Bassoon, Violin, Viola and Cello may be, there does exist an ample body of repertoire for it. Out of the Classical period composers Franz Anton Pfeiffer,  Johann Christoph Vogel, Francois Devienne, and Franz Danzi all wrote for the combination. Though not household names like Mozart or Haydn, their output remains significant today for both showcasing the bassoon and tracing the development of bassoon technique.

In more recent times, and in like manner, composers Villa-Lobos and Vaughn Williams have works setting solo bassoon against a bed of strings, though not the exact combination under discussion. But, Bernard Garfield, long-time Principal Bassoonist of the Philadelphia Orchestra, now retired, has no less than three Quartets for Bassoon, Violin, Viola and Cello in his catalog, in addition to reams of other bassoon-centric chamber works.

When Betsy Sturdevant, Principal Bassoonist with the Columbus Symphony, invited me to play and compose for her Amici Quartet, I saw it as an opportunity to break the bassoon-showcase mold in some respects. I thought, "Bassoon, plus Violin, Viola and Cello. How likely is that? It sounds like a wedding gig where the 2nd Violinist became indisposed and the other quartet members went out and grabbed the first instrumentalist to come along - a bassoonist!" Such suspension of disbelief is possible only in music videos, but I retained the idea of this being some kind of pick-up group.    

That, plus I had just seen the movie, The Visitor. I won't give the plot away except to say that a burned out college professor gets hooked on hand drumming and starts showing up at community drum circles. The phenomena of drum circles is of huge interest to me because it is quite the opposite of my classical, tightly structured training in music. What I am saying is - it explodes my whole musical universe! No one brings music. No one comes "prepared." It doesn't matter how "good" you are. No one knows what's going to happen. There's no leader. It's entirely spontaneous. As the drumming rises in intensity, people start dancing and singing. All the while new and interesting drumming patterns are rising to the surface. There's no distinction between audience and performers. No one "performance" can be written down or recreated. No one owns it. No one says, "I invented this, I am a great genius." It seems to reach down deep in the human soul and call forth some primitive, essential need to express. Everyone goes away quite satisfied, the same as if they had just listened to Beethoven's 9th Symphony.

I went to work on my "4amici" quartet with all these things in mind. I had a vision, like a stage play. Four buddies (four friends, "quattro amici"), wandering about the city, decide to gather in a public spot for a jam session. In this vision each instrumentalist is an equal participant, it's not just the bassoon on display. Each one throws in a musical idea. One is thinking about half-steps. Another throws in a forceful downward third. Another takes that and turns it on its head. Before long some semblance of music takes shape. Suddenly, there is an interruption, ceremonial music, as if the mayor is passing by. Later, the same material is transformed into something that sounds like a war song from the old country. Then the strings decide to cut the bassoon out and do their own thing. But the bassoonist won't have it and crashes the party. And so it goes, on and on. Each section spins out new ideas and new sections. Where it is headed and where it ends is anyone's guess. Eventually though, as with drum circles, the high energy dissipates and everyone calls it a night.

Sample parts are available on Scribd.com. Sheet Music is available for purchase here.

Thank you, Brett, for this most welcome addition to the bassoonist's chamber music repertoire.



 

Daphnis and Duruflé

The Columbus Symphony's most recent Masterworks concert entitled "French Feast" included Ravel: Suite No. 2 from Daphnis et Chloe and Duruflé: Requiem, Op. 9 conducted by our Music Director Jean-Marie Zeitouni. The feast offered a varying menu of challenges, from technical complexity to melodic simplicity.

Ravel composed the music for the ballet Daphnis et Chloe as a commission for Sergei Diaghilev.  It was premiered in Paris by Ballet Russe in 1912.  Many musicians consider this to be Ravel's orchestral masterpiece - its huge orchestra, (optional) chorus and lush, passionate melodies have made it a favorite of audiences worldwide.  Ravel extracted music from the hour-long ballet score to create two suites, the second (and more popular) of which includes the rousing "Danse generale".

Maurice Ravel in 1914

Daphnis is famous for its woodwind parts, especially the flute solos.  Although the bassoons are not particularly prominent in the piece, our parts are notoriously difficult, if unheard.  In fact, many bassoonists consider the Daphnis bassoon parts to be unplayable.  (No doubt, some orchestral bassoon parts truly are unplayable!)  If asked my opinion, I suppose I'd say that it is unlikely that any bassoonist would be able to execute each passage in Daphnis with 100% perfection at a reasonably fast tempo.  However, near-perfection is possible, and it's worth putting in the time to attempt to nail it reasonably well.

One thing I've noticed recently about practicing difficult technical passages is that it's helpful to keep track of progress.  I've developed a habit of penciling in my achieved metronome marking at the end of each practice session.  I mark it right in the music so that it will be visible each time I practice it.

It's extremely heartening to discover that with each practice session, the achieved tempo increases.  Frankly, I was surprised to see the evidence of progress - before I began keeping track, I often had the impression that I was just spinning my wheels.  Now I'm able to see actual proof of progress.  (If not, then it's time to re-assess one's practice techniques!)

I always start with the tempo at which I can play the passage accurately, which, due to the difficulty of the passage in question, is always very slow.  I do not allow myself to increase the metronome speed until I can play the passage perfectly several times in succession at the current tempo.  During each practice session, I begin at a tempo which is slower than my last highest tempo, to give my fingers and brain the benefit of slower-than-necessary review.

The most difficult section of the Ravel Daphnis 1st bassoon part!

Now to visit the other end of the French Feast spectrum: the Duruflé Requiem bassoon solo.  Don't be fooled by the fact that Duruflé's Requiem is only his 9th opus.  An incurable perfectionist, Duruflé has only 14 published opuses to his name; he was 45 when he wrote his Requiem, Op. 9 in 1947.  It's based upon the Gregorian themes of the Mass for the Dead, and the Lux aeterna movement opens with a statement of chant melody by the bassoon:

To me, it's very daunting to play a simple melody such as this one. It has to be perfect.  That means the intonation has to be perfect, the sound has to be even, the articulation must be perfect, the slurs must be perfectly smooth regardless of the fingerings involved, and any markings in the part must be observed.  Oh, and of course the rhythm must be perfect.

Two of those requirements are easy to practice.  Intonation is practiced by setting a drone to a reference pitch (I usually used Bflat for this solo).  The drone can be played by certain types of electronic tuners, on a computer using an online pitch-producing tuner, or on an electronic keyboard which can sustain pitches.  Then the melody is played against the drone.  It's easy to hear any pitch problems.  Rhythm is easy to practice as well, with a metronome.  Despite the odd meters, I set my metronome to 88 to the quarter.  (Since I often practice with the metronome beating on the offbeats, it does not concern me when the metronome switches from beating on the beat to off the beat in this excerpt.)  But because I don't like to become locked into any particular tempo, I make sure to sometimes practice it at different tempos, even at times like this when the composer has provided a metronome marking.  Live performances are not metronomic, and I like to plan for flexibility.

The other issues (evenness, smoothness, articulation, dynamics, phrasing, tone quality) are best addressed by recording.  Although I own a high quality recorder, it's a big hassle to get it out, re-read the directions and figure out how to operate the #&*@% thing each time I want to record.  Since I always have my phone with me, I use that.   I have recorded thousands of bassoon passages over the past year or so - in fact, I wore out the battery of my last iPhone by recording so much.  Of course we always listen to ourselves while we're practicing, but the recorder offers the perspective of the outside observer, which often exposes hitherto hidden flaws.

If I had to decide which was more challenging - the worst fast passage of Daphnis or the simple melody of the Duruflé, I can say without hesitation that the simple melody is the greater challenge to me.  How about you?


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Also Sprach Zarathustra

 The opening fanfare (entitled "Sunrise") of Richard Strauss' Also Sprach Zarathustra, Opus 30 (composed in 1896) is undoubtedly one of the most famous classical music excerpts in history, especially due to its feature in the 1968 film 2001: A Space Odyssey:



Strauss' tone poem Also Sprach Zarathustra was inspired by Friedrich Nietzsche's literary epic of the same name.  Strauss said that he hoped that his tone poem conveyed “an idea of the development of the human race from its origin…up to Nietzsche’s idea of the Superman.”  The famous opening sunrise fanfare may be thought of as the dawning of life itself, and after exploring such aspects as religion, passion, joy, science, longing, convalescence and death, the piece ends with a musical representation of the World Riddle, which remains unresolved.  (Throughout the piece, C major represents nature, and B major or minor represents mankind.  At the conclusion, the B major woodwind chord co-exists with a C in the basses so that neither B nor C is established as tonic.)

When I first encountered this piece during high school, I was most taken aback by this section:

It looks awfully daunting, doesn't it?  It's totally playable, though.  It's in 4, at a tempo of around 100 per eighth note, up to the 4/4 meter which is also in 4 at the same tempo with one quarter note per beat.

Now that I'm older and wiser, I know where the true challenge lies in this piece - at the ending, beginning with the pickup to 55 and ending at 56:

At first glance, this doesn't look like much (kind of the opposite of the earlier excerpt).  But it's one of the most difficult bassoon passages in the orchestral repertoire.  If the player's embouchure is not in shape, this passage will be unplayable because of the endurance required, especially due to the range which requires a tighter embouchure.  Additionally, breathing management is an issue.  It's necessary to push a high volume of air very slowly through the reed beginning at one after 55.  The reason the air must move slowly is because of the dynamics, which begin at p and diminuendo to ppp.  It's easy to hyper-ventilate in that type of situation.  The remedy is to rapidly expel air first before inhaling, if there is a buildup of excess air (and you won't know until the time comes!).

Normally I don't worry about embouchure.  But for a passage like this, I do.  When the Columbus Symphony recently performed this work with Music Director Jean-Marie Zeitouni, I anxiously awaited the first rehearsal on Tuesday so that I was able to find out what the tempo would be for the bassoon passage near the end of Zarathustra.  (Of course, the slower the tempo, the more difficult the bassoon solo.)  The tempo was on the slow side, and I planned for the tempo to possibly be even slower in the performances (just because it's wise to plan to be flexible).

After Tuesday afternoon's rehearsal, I practiced a lot - much more than I normally would practice late in the day.  I practiced the Strauss passage many, many times, at excruciatingly slow tempos, using the metronome so that I couldn't cheat.  Every once in a while I practiced long tones or other music before returning to the Strauss solo.  The goal was to strengthen the embouchure and to become extremely accustomed to playing that passage.  (Familiarity breeds confidence.)

On Wednesday morning, I did not practice before rehearsal.  Why?  The goal all week was to have as fresh an embouchure as possible each time I played the solo in the orchestra.  So I practiced a lot, but always after rehearsals were finished for that day.  Wednesday after rehearsing with the orchestra I practiced until late into the night, but Thursday morning no practicing was allowed before the rehearsal.  Like any other set of muscles, the embouchure rejuvenates itself during sleep, so no harm is done by over-practicing at night.

On Friday we had a morning rehearsal followed by a concert at night.  I did not allow myself to practice at all until after the Friday night concert so that I wouldn't be "wasting" my embouchure before the concert.  Why was it necessary to practice after the Friday concert?  It's because the rehearsal and concert on Friday might not provide enough of a workout for the embouchure to sustain the high level of strength needed for the Saturday night concert.  Remember, this is not normal embouchure strength we're talking about - it's super strength.

This routine may seem eccentric, but it's what I had to do to be able to sleep at night during Zarathustra week.  I also avoided caffeine before playing this solo, even in rehearsals.  Caffeine can make it difficult to control the embouchure in passages like this one.

The following Zarathustra 1st bassoon passage (sehr langsam tempo) would normally be a big deal, but it's a stroll through the park compared to the above solo!

Strauss had a knack for writing long, full-blown bassoon solos which pushed the boundaries of range, control and endurance.  It's surprising that excerpts from his works do not appear more frequently on bassoon audition lists!

That week's program, which also included Mozart's Overture to the Magic Flute and the world premiere of  Donald Harris' Symphony No. 2, was full of exciting moments.  Here is a video of our Music Director Jean-Marie Zeitouni talking about the program:

"Life without music would be a mistake."

     - Friedrich Nietzsche

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Mozart Piano Concerto No. 24 in C minor, K. 491

Bassoonists are well aware of Mozart's incredible writing for our instrument.  His lovely bassoon concerto, written when he was 18 years old, takes the prize as the best-known work (by far) ever written for bassoon.  The bassoon parts of Mozart's wind serenades, symphonies and operas clearly show his extraordinary usage of the bassoon, and his late piano concertos perhaps offer the best examples of that.

Mozart composed K. 491 for himself to play in the Vienna concert series of 1784-6.  He was quite taken with the quality of the wind players in Vienna around that time and as a result, he assigned dramatic solo roles to the wind instruments rather than mere augmentation of the string parts which had been the tradition until that point in history.  In fact, some music critics have dubbed these concertos to be concertos for winds with piano obbligato!

I love the story about Beethoven, who upon first hearing Mozart's C minor concerto famously said "Ah, we shall never be able to do anything like this".  Beethoven's 3rd piano concerto, also in C minor, is clearly influenced by Mozart's K.491.



It's not uncommon for the winds to be moved to the front of the stage for these concertos so that projection and interaction with the piano are best enabled and the performance can be approached more like chamber music.  When the Columbus Symphony performed the Mozart Concerto No. 24 last week with Music Director Jean-Marie Zeitouni and soloist Stewart Gioodyear, the Ohio Theatre stage didn't allow for such flexibility; in fact, the winds were unusually far back from the front of the stage.

There are many, many exposed passages for bassoons in this concerto, so I will identify only the standouts.  In the slow movement, practically every note is exposed, and the 1st bassoon becomes particularly important in the passage for woodwinds beginning at measure 20:

The tempo can vary quite a bit in this movement.  Stewart Goodyear's tempo was on the fast side.  Still, I do not recommend trying to double-tongue the 32nds, even though the flute, which alternates 32nds with the bassoon, is likely to be double-tonguing.  I think it would be nearly impossible to achieve the clarity and tone quality required for Mozart if double-tonguing were to be used here.  (In other words, double tonguing is likely to sound too harsh.)  Also, it's important to match, and not over-balance, the flute on the 32nds.  It can be difficult to judge balance with the flute being in front of the bassoon, so the conductor is likely to assist with that determination.   Also, the conductor may ask for the bassoon to echo the flute on the 32nds.  This is challenging, since the notes in question tend to sound loud, especially when tongued in rapid succession.  It's unlikely that Mozart intended for the bassoon to sound like a machine gun in the midst of this tranquil, lyrical movement.

This is the second page of the Larghetto:

Each note on the page is exposed, which is part of the reason why the concerto is so much like chamber music, with the bassoon rising to higher levels of prominence in certain passages such as the one beginning at 70.  The type of reed I seek for this type of playing has reliable intonation on Bflats, the ability to taper well, and a pleasant, round sound.  

The lengthy eighth note passage of the third movement is one of the bassoonistic highlights of the piece:

I like to practice it all slurred, which is infinitely more difficult than playing it articulated.  Psychologically it's good to practice with a handicap so that performing the passage as printed seems like a breeze.  (Also, it's great for tongue-finger co-ordination to practice all slurred!)

Today's wind players are indebted to the Vienna wind players of the late 1700's.  If their playing hadn't impressed Mozart as it did, our orchestra repertoire would probably be missing some great gems.

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