Klarinet Archive - Posting 000666.txt from 1997/12

From: "Edwin V. Lacy" <el2@-----.edu>
Subj: Re: Tenoroon
Date: Fri, 12 Dec 1997 16:08:26 -0500

On Fri, 12 Dec 1997, Grant Green wrote:

> On Fri, 12 Dec 1997, Roger Shilcock said:
> >In fact, there has been (perhaps still is) a "tenoroon". I think it was a
> >fourth higher than the bassoon.
>
> I think the tenoroon is essentially extinct as a serious instrument. You
> *can* still buy a beginner's instrument pitched a fourth higher (like a
> tenoroon), with simplified keywork for small children.

May I (a woodwind doubler, primarily a bassoonist) enter this discussion?
The tenoroon existed during the late Renaissance and early Baroque
periods. It was in part a result of the desire to create "consorts" of
instruments. (One of each size of an instrument, resulting in complete
families.) It may also have been intended as an instrument on which
smaller children could learn the bassoon.

As far as I know, no tenoroons were produced during the past 250 years or
so, until the past decade, when the Moosmann company of Waiblingen,
Germany began manufacturing them again. They sell them as the "Kinder
Faggot," or children's bassoon.

Among the problems of the tenoroon is that most people seem not to like
its sound very much. Another is that, as far as is known, only one
piece of music has ever been written for it, or at least, only one has
survived. That work is a duo for two tenoroons and continuo by a quite
obscure composer whose name I have forgotten at the moment. I had the
pleasure (or displeasure, as the case may be) of hearing that work
performed. That was at a meeting of the International Double Reed
Society. (I'm not quite old enough to have heard the premiere
performance!) ;-)

Actually, the tenoroon can be pitched in either F or G. I believe the
modern ones are a perfect 5th higher than the bassoon.

Ed Lacy
*****************************************************************
Dr. Edwin Lacy University of Evansville
Professor of Music 1800 Lincoln Avenue
Evansville, IN 47722
el2@-----.edu (812)479-2754
*****************************************************************

   
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