Oeuvres pour basson & orchestre

Description

On tends to relegate the bassoon to the role of simple bass, or even that of a gentle buffoon. And yet, Mozart himself entrusted it with the most tender moments of his "The Magic Flute" (much more than to the flute itself), and his very first concerto for winds was specifically intended for the bassoon: this is the "Concerto KV. 171" from 1774. The second movement, in particular, contains passages that he would reuse in certain arias of the "Countess." Rossini left us his "Concerto" in the form of a manuscript (a manuscript rediscovered only in 1990) heavily annotated, so that not all musicologists accept his exclusive authorship. The work seems to date from 1845, thus from the composer’s ultimate lyrical period; the tone, powerfully Rossinian, probably contradicts the skeptical specialists. It is up to the listener to decide. The German Kreutzer and the Swedish Crusell, more or less contemporaneous with each other, offer us two far too rare examples of concertante works for bassoon from the early Romantic period. On the bassoon, the young and talented British Karen Geoghegan, already a great international star of the bassoon, proves to us that the instrument is neither buffoonish nor macho!