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Doublereed Archive - Posting 000078.txt from 2003/11

From: "William R. Brohinsky" <onlyocelot@-----.com>
Subj: Re: [DR-L] Bassons aut of use...
Date: Sat, 15 Nov 2003 22:58:16 -0500

Matthew Peaceman wrote:

> >The simple answer to Roger's question is, "Baroque Bassoons lack the
> keys you are looking for, but are no longer in use."<
>
> Just for the record: I have at least 26 names of people in my
> telephone book who play those bassoons that 'are no longer in use'
> every day on a professional basis. There are hundreds more out there
> whose names and numbers I don't happen to have.

Well, ouch.
As a baroque oboe and recorder player, and a long time afficionado of
baroque music and a bit of an organologist, I suppose I might deserve a
reprimand of some sort for not taking this as an 'teachable moment' to
educate the world, but frankly, it looked a lot like Roger was needing
some kind of anchor to start from, rather than comeuppance for his
ignorance.. Asking for a list of makers of bassoons without 'octave
keys' isn't the stort of place to start the "This is your history, you
should be learning about it, because if you don't, you can't begin to
have an idea of what modern musical art is, or should be" sort of
hardsell. Maybe I'm wrong, but most of the people, over the last 35
years, that I've approached in that fashion have found something else
they really had to do very badly, right this moment, thank you. Like
demagnetizing their rain gutters.

I'll take an unqualified oversimplification that leaves room for
discovery and interest over an over-qualified brain-numbing lecture of
mind-warping specifics anyday. If, for example, the musicologist Roger
returns with a question for clarification, or even a clarifincation of
his question (for instance, was the exhaustive list to be of makers
between 1750 and 1820, or was it to be contemporary makers of
reproductions of bassoons of the specific variety of bassoons (prudent
and the other fellow), or, for that matter, just bassoons without
'octave keys' altogether, which could well include dulcians/curtals and
who-knows what else?) then there's a lot more left to be said, and ears
that are actually interested in hearing it.

As for the idea that all we have today is some kind of culmination of
all that has gone before, I think that's a statement you can use to
start a debate (or firefight) over the benefit of throwing out perfectly
good forms of music because something momentarily perceived as 'better'
has come along. But if Stockhausen is a culmination of anything, it sure
isn't a line of artistry and composition that includes Telemann...

Sorry, I couldn't resist that.

But seriously, Equal Temperament (Which, before we start another
shame-on-you, I put with stretch onto pianos on a regular basis) is not
the culmination of music so much as the culmination of utility, and the
musical forms that grew from it might be justifiably a culmination of
'trading one set of weaknesses for another'. But Whole Temperament seems
much more a culmination of the centuries-long search for an acceptable
compromise in pulling a temperament on a keyboard. ET12 is just taking
that a little too far.

It has taken us almost 2 centuries to realize in any kind of social
scope that the instruments and music _and_ intonations and
articulartions of previous ages are worth resurrecting and preserving.
It may take us another 2 centuries to realize conservation of these
things, which is an entirely different approach which would even
encourage new compositional efforts based on those dry old techniques
which, pacem Bear, seem so distasteful to the serialists.

But, to return to the bassoon question...

Right this moment, if I were asked who modern makers of reproductions of
early classical bassoons are, I could think of one name (although I
could add Moeck/Steinkopf to the list, probably with my own personal
caveats), which is Phillip Levin. I know there are others. They aren't
listed in my phonebook.Then again, I haven't been in the market for a
few years. As for players, compare the hundreds that are interested in
the baroque bassoon (and frankly, the far smaller number interested in
the early classical variety) to the thousands who, throughout the world,
play modern bassoons with key counts over 22, and I think you'll agree
that at worst I didn't qualify my answer as "not in common use".

It will be interesting to hear what response is passed back to Roger,
and what, if any, his response to it is. In the mean time, I did not
grasp, from my reading of Jenniffer's post, that she was looking not to
be in the loop. I have not written to him. I suspect one coherent email
will do him a lot more good than many with warring viewpoints. Would you
like to put that together? If you want to treat the question as one
requiring historical detail even unto the precursors of the instruments
he was viewing, feel free to provide him links to the woodcuts from
Praetorius Theatrum Instrumentorum, which you can find on my pages at
http://listen.to/early.music/

raybro