Capriccio was completed in 1988 and is dedicated to Graham Sheen who gave its first performance in August of that year. It is a short work lasting about seven minutes and includes challenging passages for both performers. It should be said straight away that this is not yet another piece of that jolly bassoonery so dreaded by many bassoonists. Though it contains passages of agility, these are subtly contrasted and interwoven with the other elements: a broad extended melody and two haunting "cadenzas", the second of which appears in the highest register. This is a mixture, perhaps, of caprice and capriciousness.
The work begins with bassoon and piano punching out fragments of a melody over fortissimo clusters punctuated by brilliant rising arpeggios in the piano. Gradually the music becomes calmer, bother performers closely imitating each other and moving towards a single pianissimo chord. Then comes the first of the bassoon solos, an ornamented and complete version of the melody hinted at so far. The piano joins in, developing the idea and fragmenting the rhythm so as to introduce the central fast section in which bassoon and piano share the texture, each contributing its own single staccato notes in a sort of complex mosaic. This section climaxes with the bassoon returning to the melody, now fortissimo though soon marked "più dolce", while the piano continues its "improvisation". The music again grows calmer and leads the to the second bassoon solo, this time in the upper register. A coda of only three bars ends the piece at its softest point.
This intriguing and challenging work, described by the composer as her last unprogrammatic piece, is a must for all bassoon and piano duettists. It is a demanding but highly rewarding piece to learn and required the skills and attention of chamber musicians. I also recommend the work to students approaching contemporary works for the first time; it demands both strict rhythmic and free playing over a wide compass and will encourage the development of a wide dynamic range. This is an important addition to our repertoire.
Bassoon solos in orchestral music have always held a special poignancy for me - something in the rich but plaintive sound is always arresting and somehow dignified. Perhaps it has something in common with my own instrument, the viola.
When Graham Sheen suggested I write a short piece for bassoon and piano, I was immediately attracted by the idea of exploring the possibilities of the bassoon combined with the totally separate sound-world of the piano.
Writing for a bassoonist such as Graham meant that I could stretch the instrument to its limits, and I decided to be quite uncompromising in the demands I made. Capriccio is, therefore, a virtuoso piece, using the entire range of instrument, sometimes within a single phrase.
The two instruments interact in various ways. Both sustain cantabile lines, and I have used unisons between bassoon and piano, giving a dry attack to the fullness of the bassoon tone. In other places the piano provides a foil to the bassoon, with sparkling arpeggios in a high register. Counterpoints between the two instruments, in staccato, show their sounds as almost similar.
As sometimes happens with a short, concentrated excursion into unfamiliar territory, Capriccio enabled me to explore new compositional techniques within a manageable format, and I see it as the first piece in the language that I have now established as my own.
Double Reed News No.20, August 1992
When Sir Walter Scott wrote "Some pipe of war sends the bold pibroch from afar" he was obviously thinking of the bagpipe. In transcribing this martial characteristic onto the oboe, Melinda Maxwell has succeeded in producing a very affecting work in Pibroch. It is a lovely idea because the instrument lends itself well to the constant diatonic ornamentation of bagpipe music.
The composer is faithful to the variation structure which the title dictates. At the opening, the theme is quite simple to allow the variations to develop an accumulative complexity, so much so that the slow and distant finale is an unexpected surprise. A drone of A is provided by a tape or another live instrument and sounded throughout the variations. This gives added poignancy to the close.
Although there are no "black notes" in the piece, it is sometimes quite tricky to accommodate all the ornaments within the rhythmic figurations. The music depends entirely on these grace notes and requires an easy fluency in performance.
One of the most telling aspects of the piece is the way in which the composer steers an idea which could easily fall into pastiche into a remarkably subtle essay for the solo instrument. It displays all registers of the oboe and embraces a wide dynamic and expressive range. It is a rewarding piece to play and makes compelling listening in any kind of recital programme.
Pibroch represents an idea I have about the oboe and about melody.
Ever since I first heard the oboe, its sound has continued to inspire my imagination by its expressiveness, and this particular poignancy of sound is an integral part of how I hope I can write for it.
Pibroch is essentially a celebration of one melody with some variations that gradually transform it. Each variation departs further from the initial opening theme, until at the very end we have a music that has metamorphosed into something very different.
The art of pibroch is a fifteenth century tradition of Scottish ornamentation that was taught by ear and handed down by each generation through the centuries, and only very much later notated. It is music for the bagpipes and a folk art belonging to this instrument and its environment. Some of the music is related to old Scottish songs whose lyrics portray stories of rural life. The ornamentation is complex and has an expression all of its own. In my piece, as in the pibroch style, the ornamentation is the character of the music and for me is also a harmonic starting point. It completely dominates throughout, until at the end it transforms into another melody altogether, and another harmonic language is brought into being.
The sound of the piece is one that begins as rustic and wild, and gradually through each variation mellows into something delicate and soulful.
In writing a piece for my instrument, I wanted to portray very strongly the inherent dark nature of the oboe and its power of expression. The technical demands of the ornamentation and its development heighten this expression, and the intention is to communicate all this as directly as possible. In performance, the use of a drone should intensify the pauses in the oboe line, and lead the listener into a musical experience that is almost like an improvisation.
Double Reed News No.20, August 1992
Daniel Chua spent his childhood in Malaysia, Hong Kong and Singapore before moving to England in 1972. He studied at the Purcell School, read music at Cambridge University and has spent the last year studying composition at Harvard University. He is currently writing a book on the late Beethoven quartets.
The piece Fish in Water for oboe and piano was written for Nicholas Daniel and Julius Drake way back in 1982 when they had just started out as a duo. They were giving concerts made up entirely of animal pieces and I was asked to compose something suitable; I had to choose an animal for their musical menagerie. I'm not sure why I chose fish - I've never really had one (except for dinner!). However, I should add that the piece came before the title and one should not image a fishy programme behind the music.
The creative process if often quite bizarre: I remember sketching out the initial page of the piece whilst looking at a painting by Winslow Horner - a seascape by moonlight. I was trying to capture a feeling of luminosity and stillness that the painting evoked and not the sea itself, and certainly not the fish therein! The painting was just a stimulus for the work. In the end the piece turned out to be rather crystalline and delicate, and even slightly 'oriental' in its aesthetic. The Winslow Horner, in a sense, turned into a Chinese painting: the title "Fish in Water" alludes to the strokes and textures that suggest gliding carps and lilies in some of these paintings. It is a piece about beautifully drawn lines, about very sparse and delicate textures, about a sense of 'space' that is open and layered, punctuated by the occasional calligraphic gesture. The oboe plays long, lyrical melodies, whereas the piano conjures up 'watery' textures - pianissimo, high-pitched arpeggiated. Sometimes the effect is created by playing inside the piano. There is something about the combination of the oboe, with its economy of strokes, and the transparency of the piano textures that reminds me of these Chinese paintings.
All this is metaphor, of course, but it is the most powerful way of evoking the work short of hearing it.
It was quite a while since I composed this piece, and having to write something about it now is like scraping the rust off my memory. There is certainly some nostalgia in remembering this work, because I was quite young in 1982, and although my style has changing in the course of last ten years, remarkably, I still like this piece! In fact, it is really the first piece of mine that sounds like "my music".
Double Reed News No.21, November 1992
Vladislav Shoot (b.1941) graduated from Professor N Peiko's composition class at the Gnerin Musical-Pedagogoe Institute. During 1967-82 he worked as an editor in Sovetsky Kompositor Publishers. The composer dedicated his several works to the creation and elaboration of new images of the bassoon: 'Trio' for bassoon, cello and percussion (1978); 'Romantic Messages' for bassoon, strings, flute and prepared piano (1979); 'Four Versions' for bassoon and string quartet (1990). 'Solo per fagotto' was written in 1979. This piece reveals par excellence the melodic nature of the instrument, though actively using modern ways of playing: chords, microintervals, glissandi and large bounds.
I made my first acquaintance with the music of Vladislav Shoot through a series of programmes of music by composers of the then USSR. I recorded Romantic Messages, an intriguing piece which, along with his other bassoon music is dedicated to and specially written for Valery Popov. Not long after the recording I received a letter from Mr Shoot including his 'Trio' which I subsequently performed at a festival of Soviet music at the Almeida Theatre. I was immediately struck by Vladislav Shoot's affinity for the bassoon and his interest in extending its technical and lyrical potential. Whilst in communication with Vladislav Shoot over the arrangements for publishing Solo per fagotto (done through a Russian-speaking colleague), I queried the translation of his name (which resembles WYTb in Russian), pointing out its English meaning. He replied that he would prefer a phonetic rather than literal translation given that 'Shoot' in Russian means 'Jester'! He added that since the Second Russian Revolution he had been learning English, and he hoped to be able to visit this country for six months from January 1993.
Double Reed News No.21, November 1992
Bernhard Crusell was born in Nystad, Finland in 1775. Like many distinguished wind players at the time, his musical education began in the military, and he studied the clarinet at the Svaeborg fortress. In 1791 his patron, Major Wallenstjerne took him to Stockholm where he became a member of the Royal Court Orchestra. Crusell's reputation as a clarinettist spread rapidly and he was soon appointed "Conductor of the Military Music". He also flourished as a composer and although he is mainly remembered for his works for the clarinet, he wrote an opera, many songs and other instrumental works. These include a triple concerto for clarinet, bassoon and horn, a challenging trio for these soloists, and the Concertino for bassoon and orchestra. He later went to study with Tausch in Berlin and Gossec and Lefevre in Paris, but the majority of his life was spent in Stockholm, where he died in 1838.
Airs Suédois, (which is not related to the clarinet piece of the same name), was written around 1814. Its single movement resembles a sonata form structure with a slow but highly decorated introduction. However, in place of a development section, Crusell introduces a new theme with three variations. Berwald must surely have known this work when writing his Konzertstück in 1826.
The manuscript consists of a solo bassoon part and keyboard reduction of the full score which, like the orchestral parts, has unfortunately been lost. Despite its importance in the repertoire of the bassoon, therefore, it has remained unpublished. The solo part in Crusell's hand has obviously been written as great speed but contains only one or two minor inconsistencies. The keyboard reduction is a fair copy but contains no solo cue line. Both include orchestral cues such as "violini", "oboi" and "corni". Although the keyboard part is in places a little clumsy, presumably in an attempt to include all the harmonies, it is reproduced here in its entirety. In 1985, I decided to try a reconstruction of the orchestral score, and this version was first performed that year with the BBC Concert Orchestra under James Lockhart. This score and parts are available on hire from BDRS Publishing.
Double Reed News No.22, February 1993
Mark C Pollard (b. 1957) studied composition and music theory at La Trobe University with Theodore Dollarhide, Graham Hair and Jeffrey Pressing. He worked as a tutor in music (then senior tutor) at La Trobe University from 1980 to 1985 before being appointed lecturer in contemporary materials at the School of Music, Victorian College of the Arts, in 1986. He received the Jacobena Angliss Music Award in 1983, and was winner of the Canberra Young Composers' Competition and finalist in the third Tokyo international composition contest (1988). Works include: 'Mirror of Pieces in Glass' for 4-8 part choir (1985); Elision - 'Highly Strung' (1987); 'A Sympathetic Resonance' for 10 string guitars; 'With Seven Nailed Sorrows' (1988); Pipeline - 'To cast a Shadow' (1986); 'From Your Lips to God's Ear' (1988).
Mark Pollard is among the most prominent of a group of younger composers who have come to the fore in Melbourne during the 1980s. His music has developed from a strong theoretical background in serial techniques and is informed by the colour and drama of contrasting sonorities, dynamics and rhythmic patterns. Slow-moving bands of sound, interspersed with sudden, explosive gestures are frequently juxtaposed with rapid and rhythmically complex passages which carry the music forward and make considerable demands on the virtuosity of the performers. Not for him the simplicity of minimalism, nor the overt appeal to the emotions of the neo-romantics.
A feature of Pollard's career has been his close association with the new music ensembles which have emerged in his home town of Melbourne parallel with his development as a composer. Much of his music has been written expressly for groups such as Pipeline, Elision and the Astra Society, and it is no doubt, mainly for this reason, that his work so far is primarily for mixed chamber ensembles and for solo or mixed voices. His one orchestral work, the Chamber Symphony, was composed in response to his participation in the Young Composers' School with the ABC's Training Orchestra in 1984. In Mark Pollard's rise to prominence, both as a composer and as a teacher, during the past ten years, a significant new voice has been added to music in Australia.
Double Reed News No.22, February 1993
JW, 27-Mar-2006