MiV Home
Phillip T Young Recital Hall
May 22, 2013
Whether Ezra Pound actually played the bassoon himself is a moot point.
The bassoon is unique among the regular instruments of the orchestra in that it is the only one which the player actually wears rather than holds. It has a reputation for ungainliness, the sort of instrument that is sent to the back of the class to "get on with something quiet".
For the majority of music lovers the most familiar bassoon moments are probably the opening of The Rite of Spring, The Sorcerer's Apprentice and perhaps "the great bassoon joke" in the finale of Beethoven's Fourth (and the fact that Tovey found this term appropriate speaks volumes for the general regard in which the instrument is held). Few will think of it as a solo instrument, and even though Mozart wrote a concerto for the bassoon, that is a relatively early work and - be honest - when was the last time you heard a performance?
Wednesday's "satellite" concert of the Victoria Summer Music Festival featured bassoonist Martin Kuuskmann, who would appear to be doing for his instrument what Gary Karr did for the double bass, and with a similar arsenal of dazzling virtuosity, transcriptions, new works written explicitly for him - and humour.
The programme opened with what was easily the earliest music of the evening, Bach's Concerto, BWV1059.
To call the provenance of this music complex would be an understatement. We know that Bach wrote a concerto for oboe (now lost) and then utilised at least the opening movement (possibly all three) in the cantata, BWV35. He then began a keyboard version of the concerto, of which a mere nine bars survive; but as these are identical to the sinfonia from the cantata, reconstructions of both the keyboard concerto and the oboe original have been made.
Kuuskmann has transcribed the oboe version for bassoon and added a valuable work to the instrument's repertoire - for those with the skills to play it.
This was a delightful opener to the evening, with the ensemble of the Emily Carr Quartet, Colin Tilney (who could give, and doubtless has given masterclasses on continuo playing) and Darren Buhr providing a marvellously crisp and transparent accompaniment, while Kuuskmann himself shattered into a thousand pieces the preconceptions most of the audience (self included) had of his instrument. (He is also a very physical player, turning complete circles while playing and even, in the quicker music, dancing.)
Although the outer movements fizzed with energy, it was the slow movement which stood out for me: one of those oh-so-simple yet transcendentally beautiful Bach adagios with pizzicato string delicately underpinning a sublime cantabile for which the bassoon's plaintive timbre was a perfect match.
The next item came from almost three centuries later. The music of Ana Sokolović is familiar to regular attendees of concerts by Aventa and Commedia dell'arte I, originally composed for the Banff competition, was replete with her trademark sense of humour.
It is good to hear the Emily Carr Quartet in contemporary repertoire and this performance simply underlined what a superb group they have become: it was thoroughly, even ardently committed to the music and featured razor-sharp ensemble, even in the trickiest passages.
Standout moments included the glissandos of Docteur, the gorgeous muted harmonics which closed Colombine and the wildly accented, heavy-breathing-and-stamping Capitaine, with its amusing final gesture of all four players holding their instrument guitar fashion and strumming out what sounded suspiciously like the three-against-two rhythm of Leonard Bernstein's America.
VSMF Artistic Director Arthur Rowe and Kuuskmann closed the first half with Arvo Párt's Spiegel im spiegel, a mesmerising work in which the bassoon (originally a violin, but the work exists in at least eight versions) weaves a melodic line mainly built from scales over an almost constant piano accompaniment in triple time.
The music does more than engage, it enraptures, particularly when played with this level of concentration. I suspect that anybody in the hall guilty of dropping a pin would immediately have been asked to vacate the premises.
The second half of the evening opened with Song for a Distant Friend by Estonian composer Tõnu Kõrvits. As Kuuskmann pointed out, in this case "distant" was being used in its sense of "far away"; accurately, as the composer was a school-friend and, unlike Kuuskmann, still lives in Estonia.
The piece is difficult to describe, although "song like" is certainly not a phrase I even considered, as it includes of a number of remarkable sounds not normally associated with the bassoon and little one could accuse of being a melody. Kuuskmann gave a thoroughly gripping performance, holding the interest of even those who would usually run a mile from anything smacking of the contemporary.
There followed two short works by Tango King Astor Piazzola. Four for Tango is for string quartet and the Emily Carrs gave a fabulously precise, although never stiff, account of this dark music.
Oblivion added bassoon and piano to the mix and showed a lighter, almost louche side to the composer. One could easily imagine this as the soundtrack to the film of a Graham Greene novel set in South America: Our Man in Buenos Aires, as it were. The performance was lush and highly evocative.
Finally, Kuuskmann played the work of another friend, Daniel Schnyder, whose Sonata was originally composed for soprano saxophone, then arranged for clarinet, then oboe and finally, at Kuuskmann's request, for bassoon.
Cast in the traditional four movements, the sonata was spiky, volatile, fast and furious, and jazzy (with a hint of Spanish rhythms) by turn. A fine end to a fascinating evening.
To be precise, almost the end. For an encore Kuuskmann and Rowe played (it was oh so familiar, but I had to check) the Meditation from Massanet's Thäis. This quite lovely performance confirmed that, in the right hands, the bassoon is an instrument for all seasons.
MiV Home