Sequenza21/The Contemporary Classical Music Weekly

Dispatch from the Lyric

Last night the Lyric Chamber Music Society of New York wrapped up their eighth season with something unusual: a bassoon recital. I’d love to know how many S21 readers have been to a recital dedicated to bassoon music in the last year. I myself haven’t been to one in the last twenty-seven. The lucky featured bassoonist was Martin Kuuskmann, and the Lyric’s game audience was treated to a program of music by Gene Pritsker, Francisco Mignone, Matt Herskowitz, and Daniel Schnyder. Oh – and Camillle Saint-Saëns. From the spoils of this program, though, it seems to me the bassoon has yet to find its Chopin: that composer whose complete dedication to the instrument and innate musicality succeed in unlocking the instrument’s true potential. Once this composer shows up, however, I’d suggest they get a hold of Mr. Kuuskmann, who has the unstoppable combination of charisma and virtuosity that can make even mediocre music sound masterful.

Despite Mr. Kuuskmann’s playing, however, something was bugging me for the entire first half. The Saint-Saëns was fine; the Pritsker was fine; the Mignone was . . . not so fine, but I couldn’t pinpoint exactly what was bothering me about the music. Then at intermission I remembered something John Corigliano said in a talk I heard years ago. He was about to start work on his Oboe Concerto, and, studying past oboe concertos, he realized they all might as well have been written for a violin. Sure the oboe’s timbre would be lost, but there was nothing essentially “oboe” about each concerto. He then asked the oboist for whom he was writing what things only an oboe could do. Then it hit me: Saint-Saëns, Pritsker, and Mignone aren’t really writing for the bassoon: they are merely writing their music and fitting it into a bassoon’s range. They are not allowing the instrument to stretch their musical imagination; instead, they merely appropriate the bassoon’s sound for their pre-existing musical ideas. Which might as well be played on a cello.

The composers on the second half faired only slightly better. Both Herskowitz’s “Sicilienne and Fugue” and Schnyder’s Sonata for Bassoon and Piano take inspiration from jazz, and the bassoon’s timbrel proximity to the saxophone helps both works. But both composers are really just treating the bassoon as a surrogate sax. Now I’m not saying composers must only write instrumental music that at every moment utilizes the unique capacities of individual instruments: to use instruments merely for their tone-color is reason enough to use them. But it seems to me none of the composers on the program really got to know the bassoon in their writing for it. To be fair, some pitch bending did occur in the Schnyder. But what about multiphonics, key-slaps, smacking sounds, timbral trills? If the bassoon is ever to carve out its own niche in the chamber-music repertory, composers must be unafraid to explore its uniqueness. Corigliano (and Berio) have figured this out. I’d love to know who else has.

posted by David Salvage 5/25/2006