Jessi and I were talking in rehearsal yesterday (always a dangerous thing), and we started discussing how some composers have great "bassoon sense" and others just... don't. What I mean by that is some composers really wrote awesome parts for us. They had a certain knack for bassoon-writing. They make us lowly bassoons feel important, needed, and just plain awesome (which we are). Typical good parts include sweet solos and material that makes us feel like we're actually part of the woodwind section and not a low brass player who has a curiously wooden-looking instrument.
Others composers, however, wrote us some particularly awful parts. These offenders make us feel like we are back in seventh grade band, playing some horrid piece with three other bassoons in our section. Typically, said "horrid piece" involves blowing our brains out and still struggling to be heard. Oh, but no need, because usually they just copy out the trombone part (or heaven forbid the tuba part) for us to play. It's like, they didn't know what to do with us so they decided, "Oh, why don't I just stick 'em with the low brass!" Horrendous. Heinous!
So to honor this distinction, we decided to make a list of composers with the best bassoon sense (Bassoon Whisperers, as I like to call them) and the worst offenders. In no particular order, here they are:
The Bassoon Whisperers
-Beethoven
-Shostakovich
-Stravinsky
-Rimsky-Korsakov
-Prokofiev
-Mozart
-Copland
-Moussorgsky
-Ravel
-Sibelius
-Tchaikovsky
-Vaughan-Williams
Worst Bassoon Offenders
-Mahler
-Wagner
-Brahms
-Berlioz
-Dvorak
-Delius
-Sousa
9 comments:
I love it!
I liked the bassoon whisperers, too, for they tend to actually write real oboe-y parts.
At least you get low brass parts, though. Silly composers think we're flute players! Don't they know we can't move our fingers that fast?? Especially with all the reed war wounds??
Katie, you inspire me. Thank you for immortalizing me on your blog. I do have to wonder if Strauss belongs on the bad list... til eulenspiegel has a pretty sweet part.
Mmm, fair enough. My only real experience with Strauss was Death and Transfiguration...and while the part was pretty cool, I felt like I could barely hear myself. It reminded me of playing Mahler. I'll remove him for now.
hah. mahler writes awesome trumpet stuff. in fact most of the composers on both lists, if not all, write pretty sweet trumpet stuff. (well, maybe not mozart...)
It's like a balloon with 'ss'es.
Thank you. Now I comprehend what it means to be a follower of bassoonism!
What about pop songs? I think a really fun bassoon part is in "Tears of a Clown" by Smokey Robinson and the Miracles. A really lame bassoon part is in "I Got You, Babe" by Sonny & Cher.
I've thought the same thing! You just stated it in an orderly and eloquent fashion. Amen!
(and yes, I'm now blogstalking you. Bwa ha ha ha...)
I hate Sonny & Cher for forever making people think oboes really sound all blatty and stupid like that. It's horrid.
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