music matters-bassoon

Making bassoon reeds from tube to finished reed

2011-12-20T07:51:00.000-08:00

Well, I finally took the plunge. I have now got a room full of tube cane which I have to split, pre-gouge, gouge, shape, hardness test, profile, construct into a reed, tip on a tipper and then finish by hand. Phew. Despite the obvious long term cost savings on prepared cane (and I really do mean long term to make back all this investment!) I have to question the business sense. It’s going to take me a lot of reed sales to recoup this. However, on the few dozen or so I have made up so far it becomes obvious that I am able to make more consistent and useable reeds by being in control of the whole process. And if a piece of cane really doesn’t meet my criteria then I don’t feel bad about not making a reed out of it as it is pennies rather than pounds I am turning down! The main thing is that this will be better for the students and other players who buy reeds from me already.

I thought about making some videos of the whole process but there are already some great sites out there and some good Youtube clips. But I will share one thing right now - I changed the blade in my profiler and sharpened the one in the tipper. I had got so used to blunt blades that I hadn’t noticed how much effort and force I was using on a piece of cane and that ends up with compressed fibres and less vibration! The sharp blades are a revelation and lesson learned. I will post some pictures of the fun but meanwhile interested to hear feedback on others experiences.

Breathing and resonance

2011-08-04T08:56:00.000-07:00

A few months ago I found the great videos on http://www.playwithapro.com/ with Gustavo Núñez from the Concertgebouw Orchestra.

This week they have put a new video up from Berlin Phil veterans oboist Hansjörg Schellenberger and flautist Emmanuel Pahud.

The download of the first video from Schellenberger (Breathing and Blowing) is free (you have to also have the player installed from the site though you can watch a free preview). Both he and Emmanuel Pahud make some points on breathing that I have never heard before and that I found amazingly helpful. Always easier “said” rather than put into practise and done of course, but in this case it had an immediate impact on my playing.

It never ceases to amaze me how one player sounds like him or herself on whatever make of instrument they play on. In the search for an easier life we try Heckel, Fox, Moosmann, Puchner, Bell, Soulsby, Adler, Mollenhauer and so on (though I have yet to try a Leitzinger bassoon!). Also endless reed scraping and crook changing has led me to a set up that feels comfortable with a wide dynamic range. But at the end of the day I sound like Tom playing the bassoon. Even on a Chinese Lark. Which for all of us is actually a good thing as it is our individual voice.

But some of Emmanuel Pahud’s comments on resonance (especially an analogy he makes and a comment on how to open up the sinus and nose area) go a long way to explaining to me why this would be. And a practise session after watching this video was VERY fruitful (and fruity in the “resonance” department!).

So in the interest of improving sound/projection/tuning/comfort/endurance and dynamic range have a look and let me know if you agree or disagree with them and what you get out of it! I’m sure there will be as many viewpoints as there are players but either way there is something to be gained from this video.

Hats off to founder Adam Simonsen (clarinetist playing in The Royal Danish Orchestra, educated from the Juilliard School of Music, and founder of Play with a Pro) for creating this site and getting these videos done!

Guildhall School of Music and Drama bassoonists in action

2011-07-08T02:51:00.000-07:00

Well the future of bassoonery is in good hands, with Meyrick Alexander and Gordon Laing (contra) and Stuart Russell(reed making) as professors there swelling the ranks of the collective bassoons at the school for this great rendition of “Bassoonists Holiday” (which sounds like it’s Fraser Jackson’s fab arrangement for the Calibans if I am not mistaken).

A great Super Mario trio with hats and choreography on the same youtube channel too! It never ceases to amaze me how bassoonists just naturally share this zany sense of humour. On a smaller scale we have our next http://www.reedrage.co.uk/ outing on 24th July at St. Anne’s Kew in London with some great fun lined up! Maybe getting all our pupils involved for a grand finale is a good idea. So the world of bassoon ensembles is very much alive!

BIG Double Reed 2011

2011-06-14T06:28:00.000-07:00

Hard to believe that over half a year has gone by since the last BIG Double Reed Day but there we go. http://www.bigdoublereed.com/
With Summer Holidays coming up it’s time to spread the news to pupils and parents to put 6th November in the diary. And there was a strong adult attendance last year too so this is for everyone!

Leitzinger Bassoon Crooks

2011-05-25T06:55:00.000-07:00

I am very pleased to have found Leitzinger crooks. Stephan Leitzinger makes the most stable yet flexible bassoon “bocals” I have ever tried. These have been popular in Europe and the US and Canada for some time but few have heard of them in the UK.
Stephan makes a vast range of styles so that you can match the crook to your bassoon and reeds and performance requirements. The main feature most people notice immediately is that with the right crook the bottom is not too sharp, the tenor not too flat and the high B and C not too sharp, with the octaves more balanced and in tune on a variety of reeds. Though the first blowing of them is not always impressive in the way that an old Heckel crook can be, once in the orchestra it is the ability to creep around pianissimo and create a real fortissimo that makes these such a hit with pro players around the world.
I was pleased to see and hear Meyrick Alexander using his platinum plated MDV2 for his final concert with the Philharmonia Orchestra at the BBC Proms 2010 which sounded splendid in the Ravel Left Hand Piano concerto solo!
I currently have an S2V platinum (thin walled, great for creeping around fag2 and very responsive) an MDV1 (Ravel piano concerto, Saint Saens top E’s no problem but still lovely down the bottom so not a one trick high note crook) and the best crook I have ever tried, M1F Platinum, which seems to have been made from metal mined by dwarfs and hammered into shape with the assistance of elves and is perhaps made of “Mithril”....it is some blend of metals that Stephan Leitzinger doesn’t tell us about in detail.
More information on “Leitzinger Bocals” can be found here (as well as information on his bassoons) www.leitzinger.de/en/ins_nav_02a.html
On my Mollenhauer contra I play a very early pre war Heckel contra crook which has projection qualities I haven’t found in modern ones and have a Puchner B2 which is fabulous for sorting out the flat tenor register on these contras. I am looking forward to Stephan Leitzinger’s plans to make a contra bassoon crook coming to fruition.
Julian Partridge from the Ulster Orchestra is now also playing on a Leitzinger so we have a matched section when I play there:
“I’ve been playing Fox bassoons for over 20 years and have always used Heckel crooks with them; finding the factory Fox crooks lacking flexibility, especially for grovelling around when playing 2nd bassoon. When I was working in Hong Kong I bought a Heckel C1 which was wonderful at grovelling. But I always thought it was weak in the tenor register. Fast forward ten years and Tom showed me a Leitzinger crook, which at first I didn’t warm to, but then a few months ago he leant me an M1N and I thought “wow”. It has more resistance than my Heckel but is great in the tenor register and is supremely flexible in all registers. There are rumours of a contra crook.. can’t wait.” Julian Partridge Acting Principal Bassoon Ulster Orchestra (Now the proud owner of the M1N)
Stephan has contacted me with the idea of coming over for a small event in UK in the Autumn which would be a great chance for more of us to try these crooks.

New site for Musicians - play with a pro

2011-05-17T04:56:00.000-07:00

There is a new site called Play With A Pro which I came across which is amazing. It is in its early stages but already has some great masterclasses up and the bassoon world is currently represented by Gustavo Núñez from the Royal Concertebouw Orchestra.

You can see short previews on the site but I paid and watched all of the Núñez ones as I was busy making reeds and this was a change from Radio 3 and 4 (and I had enough money in my Paypal account!).

The founder is Adam Simonsen - a clarinetist playing in The Royal Danish Orchestra, and he has done a fabulous job of getting this live and working in high definition. I have been in touch with him to ask about teacher discounts and other ideas and he is very happy to receive feedback. Hats off to him for pushing the idea through from conception to a live site with all the structure in place.

The pricing is one subject that he has obviously had to think about long and hard and it isn’t cheap but seems fair.

The only Englishman on the list so far is David Campbell and Adam says this will go live in the summer. Also there is a coming soon for Sergio Azzolini which I think can’t fail to be entertaining and useful.

The production is simple but very high quality with fabulous sound so the files are huge but it all works with the software installed from the website.

http://playwithapro.com/

The contra bassoon vs the contraforte

2010-10-19T04:58:00.000-07:00

Well, the debate continues. After reading this article http://m.smh.com.au/entertainment/music/flatulent-contrabassoon-gets-a-modern-second-wind-20101015-16nin.html and the comments on the sound of the contra bassoon I was intrigued to find http://voices.washingtonpost.com/the-classical-beat/2010/10/contrabassoon_contraforte_audio.html where you can actually hear Lewis Lipnick sounding fantastic on BOTH instruments.

I did try the contraforte at IDRS in Birmingham in 2009 and really couldn’t see how we could use it in place of the contra as it is SO very different. But from these audio clips the difference is not as huge as I thought. I would be interested to hear from contra players who have played a contra forte and especially from those who have played it in a professional orchestra and why!

http://www.guntramwolf.de/englisch/f_modern.html#kontraforte has Guntram Wolf’s information on the development and http://www.Eppelsheim.com/kontraforte.php?lang=en has sound links.

Helping Your Child Practise

2010-08-11T05:19:00.001-07:00

A note to parents of the young bassoon player.

As a parent of the budding bassoonist you play a key role in helping them make rapid progress. After all you have already found a bassoon teacher, paid for the books, the reeds, the hire or even purchase of the instrument and endured the first fantastic cow noises coming from the new addition to the family! You could of course sit back and hope that their weekly lesson of half an hour will bear fruit and transform them into the next soloist and speed their progress into the National Youth Orchestra OR you could get more involved! But how?

From my experience the pupils who get distinction in their exams and make rapid progress have a great deal of support at home. Not that you are expected to teach the bassoon - that's my job. But working with parents on ways to help their child practise constructively and regularly (without undue nagging or "pressure") and by sending recordings of lessons and "how the piece goes" by email to the parents to put on the student's ipod, I have seen a huge difference in speed of progress this year.

Most teachers keep a notebook that they send back with your child after a lesson. This lays out what they have done in the lesson, what they want the child to practise and a place for you to make notes and in some cases sign off the times that the young player has actually practised! But even in schools where this is part of the rules the practise book gets neglected. A short note from you back to the teacher in this book is a huge encouragement that we are not writing notes into a void.

The child who doesn't want to practise at all is not being discussed here - that's a different story. But the willing pupil will usually have chosen the bassoon because they have heard one being demonstrated at school by someone like me and have realised for themselves that it is a wondrous noise unlike anything else. But the sound that comes out of their bassoon (or in the case of the small ones out of their mini bassoon or tenoroon) can bear little resemblance to what they heard. And the task becomes getting enough progress FAST enough so that they can sound good and get to play in their school ensemble as that's when the real fun starts - the bassoon is really a social instrument and doesn't stand up well to years of solitary confinement.

By getting agreement on how much time they can practise (around the sports club, the swimming, the friends, the TV, and the ever increasing "homework" from school) we can then start to monitor progress. This is much more important than "time spent". Progress is what they want and we all want. If they can do this effectively in the least time and have fun whilst doing it then we are all happy. And when things are going slowly that's the time to go back and forth with notes in the book or even call to discuss. With the lazier pupils I often make this into a game of how they can practise better in less time and point out I give no rewards for time wasted blowing down the bassoon with no progress.

As a teacher I want my pupils to learn WHAT and HOW to practise so that they can see, hear and feel the progress and enjoy that progress. Some are exam driven, others reward driven and some (the ideal bassoonist) are happy to go up to their room and tinker and experiment and come back and say "I found bottom Bb!" the next week.

If you are a parent of a pupil of mine already you will know you get emails/sound files and recommendations as well as writings in the "practise book" each week. With these tools and an open dialogue back and forth the whole "learning adventure" is greatly aided.

Here's to constructive practise and happy blowing!

http://www.tomhardybassoon.com/

The Big Double Reed Day, London 10th October 2010

2010-07-01T05:53:00.000-07:00

It’s official - preparations for the Big Double Reed Day at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama on Sunday 10th October 2010 are not only underway, we have a WEBSITE all alive and shiny. http://www.bigdoublereed.com/

Crook Repairs

2010-06-01T08:15:00.000-07:00

Sometimes a small adjustment to a crook (bocal) makes a big difference to the playing angle and playing comfort for a bassoonist and can prevent long term strain of both neck and hands. After all the bassoon doesn't naturally fit the human body by any stretch of the imagination! I have always had to do little bending of a bassoon crook for my height and playing position so that my head and hands are at a comfortable angle. I haven’t needed the full “English Bend” that some makers provide (and which Heckel used to call "berger" bend and now seem to call "flat bend") which seems to work especially well for very tall people as it drops the hands/shoulders to a comfortable height when using a seat strap, spike or dutch leg support.

If there is more than a few centimetres bending needed I have usually had a repairer do this by filling the crook with a metal that melts at boiling point (such as Field’s Metal or Woods Metal) to make sure the walls don’t split or collapse. This involves re-corking and the right materials to hand, so I have done many bends just by filling the crook with table salt to give some support internally. For a small change on a new crook this has worked. Also I have risked bending the metal with nothing inside with no bad results and indeed watched one maker bend a new crook for me in front of my eyes (though he did tell me not to watch!).

However I recently did a small bit of bending on a crook which resulted in not only a split but a split right across and I suddenly found myself with two bits. Aaargh. My "crook bending without a safety belt on" days are over.

David Lock is a name known to most UK bassoonists. He has not only produced endless supplies of reeds and contra bassoon reeds for decades, he has also saved the day on repairs for many years. Although he is reluctant to take on metal work these days he has a very talented son Steve who lives a few minutes away from him (in deepest Suffolk) and repairs oboes, clarinets and of course bassoons! This week Steve saved the day by repairing the mess I had made below. Not only repaired, but actually works better than before! (Though I wouldn’t recommend it as a regular method of softening up a crook). Steve tells me he is totally happy to take on more bassoon repairs and I would highly recommend him: steve@utopians.co.uk

Though of course I am hoping not to repeat my mistake on unsupported crook bending again!

Bassoon Reed Reamers

2010-03-25T07:07:00.000-07:00

Having bought and cursed a variety of reamers over the years from cheap to very expensive I have recently found one that ticks ALL the right boxes and is really the Rolls Royce of reamers!

It reams out the back of a reed a) rapidly b) without blisters on my left index finger (I’m left handed) c) wet or dry d) right into throat - so throat is left a uniform size and remedied if I have made the throat a bit too small e) with a ring round the top of the reamer to set the depth I want it to go onto the bassoon crook. Oh and f) it's SHARP. Very sharp!

I usually make reeds in batches of ten and used to dread the reaming bit as ten in a row was cramp and blister inducing! This is now more like pealing some potatoes but more fun.

I have tried Pisoni, Rigotti, Reiger (and still use the diamond finishing reamer when out and about to keep in my bassoon case) and some lesser known and often ended up using a combination of them in the finishing process. All a bit painful really (literally!)

The supplier of the magic reamer?

Barrick Stees - Assistant Principal Bassoonist of the Cleveland Orchestra. He teaches at the Cleveland Institute of Music and the University of Akron. The reamer was designed by Ken Potsic

http://steesbassoon.com/

Look under "products"

In fact the whole site is something I have referred to again and again over the last two years as I have found his reed making advice very very sound and helpful.

2010-03-08T09:48:00.000-08:00

The aches and pains of bassooning

2010-02-22T08:48:00.000-08:00

Last year I was experiencing a great deal of discomfort playing the bassoon and contra bassoon. I ended up going for some physio to help correct this but it only made matters worse. I met another bassoonist, Fiona Bryan, on a gig and commented on her great posture and said "ah Alexander Technique". When she told me she taught it I immediately asked for a lesson. Somewhere in the back of my mind I knew I should return to Alexander Technique as I had seen it work on others and had a brief attempt to get lessons whilst I was studying at the Guildhall! (In those days it was only the string players who got this as part of their course.. times have changed).

After the initial frustration of wanting instant results and Fiona pointing out that years of habit are not undone in five minutes I settled down into a routine of using AT to make changes. I found that keeping regular lessons and sessions made a huge difference as big gaps in between just led to old habits slipping in. However, a year down the line I can see a big difference in my general posture and more importantly I don't HURT all the time! If my back or muscles become painful I know I can control this and take the time to use the techniques to get me back on track. I had wanted something where I could do all the work and not go to someone to "treat" or "adjust me" and most of the work in Alexander Technique is indeed on your own. However, my concept of being able to do it all myself was only partially correct as the hands on work from someone trained is essential and makes all the difference between success or failure and has yielded much faster results.

As there are immediate benefits and long term improvements to be had I continue to work on using more and more of what I have been learning. And this of course is starting to pay dividends with my breathing and posture when playing. And nobody seems to mind me lying on the floor with a book under my head before a gig as long as I don't clutter up the corridor too much...

I can't stress enough just how vital learning this technique is for any performer as we all put our bodies through twists and contortions to play/sing/dance or whatever. But of course it applies just as much for anyone in any walk of life as good posture and freedom from back pain makes life a lot more fun!

For those in London Fiona Bryan teaches from home and can be found at
http://www.dulwichtherapyrooms.co.uk/#/alexander-technique/4536349747

There is also a great book that covers the basics well called Body Breath and Being by Carolyn Nicholls.

2009-10-14T06:36:00.000-07:00

"Reed Rage" filled Burgh House in Hampstead on 12th October with an enthusiastic and attentive audience for a programme of Bassoon Quartets, including the European Premiere of "Dance of the Polar Bears" by Gernot Wolfgang as well as many delightful ditties. Although the room did seem to contain a fair smattering of bassoonists in the audience, there were a couple of dozen people who had probably never even blown a bassoon or made a reed. No doubt they were closely related in other ways to the bassoonists in the room and had been dragged along. The feedback was most positive and confirmed that this is indeed a superior genre and may well replace the string quartet in the 23rd century.

The whole event was highly entertaining and coincidentally was finished in Ye Olde White Bear public house though no live Polar Bears were seen. More pictures can be seen on Picasa

Pictures Here

Basssoon Teaching and Reed Making with Adult pupils

2009-07-24T07:40:00.000-07:00

I have really enjoyed the coaching I have done with adults in the last few months - both sectional rehearsals for orchestras and one on one teaching. It's a very different experience to taking rehearsals with fourteen year olds! Both are fun, but the adult amateur world gathers together some very bright people who really want to make the best music they can.

On the subject of teaching bassoon players and teaching reed making one on one I asked one recent pupil - a very advanced amateur who has an encyclopaedic knowledge of chamber music repertoire - to write a few words on how he got on:

"In a matter of minutes Tom Hardy had singled out the right crook for my setup from among many. He then specified the right scrape for this crook and this reed, and proved it with a few deft scrapes to my number two reed, which then instantly became my number one reed! Invaluable session!"

He also said:

"I had reached a very low limit of staccatto speed. Tom Hardy took one look at what I was doing and not only showed me what was slowing it down, but followed that up with a written set of exercises for me in particular to keep me from falling back into bad habits. Extremely useful. I will go back regularly from now on." Hugh Rosenbaum.

Couldn't have put it better myself, so I won't! Thanks Hugh!

position of first and second wires on bassoon reeds

2009-05-30T07:39:00.000-07:00

Well, in a random experiment after a discussion with another player and my slightly altered version of what she had been recommended by another pro bassoon player I discovered something rather odd about the first and second wires on a reed:

Moving the second wire up towards the first sharpens the overall pitch of the reed. It does on my shapes anyway (Fox 1 or Herzberg).

I have seen such a variety of wire positions and lengths of reed that I have long since departed from any set position as gospel. But slipping the first wire back towards the second also changes things and makes a slightly less resistant reed which is easier at the bottom but then not so supported at the top.

There are many other factors of course (variables) like the tightness of these wires and the scrape of the actual blade.

I was finding I needed to make a reed 25mm from shoulder to tip to be up to pitch on a Number 2 crook and couldn't work out how an ultra long reed like a Danzi would play at pitch. One of the factors is the wire position.

This is not the end of the search but just a bit of info that I couldn't find on any sites after a bit of googling so decided it warranted a blog post.

Bassoon concertos in London - Spring bassoon fever!

2009-04-08T03:28:00.000-07:00

Well, it must be Spring at last as there are bassoon solo concerts springing up all over the place this season!

Meyrick Alexander is playing the Weber Andante and Hungarian Rondo next week at St John's Smiths Square

You can read more about Meyrick here

Then there is the Royal Academy Bassoon Ensemble doing their thing on 24th April listing here

And the day after if you can get to Oxford for 25th April Karen Geoghegan is playing the Weber concerto with the Oxford Sinfonia

conducted by Mark Fitzgerald - a busy weekend for Karen!

Then next month on 25th May Adam Mackenzie is playing the Mozart Concerto at St Martin-in-the-Fields with the Brandenburg Sinfonia conducted by Bob Porter. Info here

There is a nice biog for Adam here

(The picture at the top is of Meyrick though just to confuse you).

Bob Porter is also conducting a Baroque concert featuring a Vivaldi bassoon concerto with Charlotte Cox playing the A minor concerto on 12th May.

Whilst linking and promoting these I was contacted by Bachtrack.com and I was sent another really useful link to find concerts - here

Click on "all bassoons" at the bottom of the first list to see what everyone is up to.

2009-02-12T05:18:00.000-08:00

This weekend will see over eighty young bassoonists descending on the Guildhall School of Music for the Big Bassoon Day. Bob Porter has made an arrangement of "When the Saints" for a mass play in at the end of the day and top pro players are giving master classes so this is set to be quite something. I have been drafted in to help on the "try a contra bassoon" sessions as well as the reed making/adjusting for some of the younger attendees!

The Big Bassoon Day

2009-02-05T08:15:00.000-08:00

Last year I had a scary moment when my bassoon fell over and mangled my early 1900's heckel CC2 crook (bocal). Luckily my first teacher and bassoon expert extraordinaire (David Lock out in deepest Suffolk) has some magic "dent balls" that restored it to its original shape and it plays just as well if not better now. This experience led me to look for another crook as a back up. I had heard about Benson Bell bassoons and my professor from the Guildhall School of Music (Ian Cuthill) mentioned in an email that Bell made the best pre war heckel crook copies he had tried. I emailed last summer to find out more and Mr. Bell is a busy man (understandably with the testimonials you can see on his site! www.bellbassoons.com

To my surprise two crooks came through at the beginning of January. Confusingly the description on his site doesn't match the letters on the crook and his assistant tells me they need to update the site! The good news is that the pre war D crooks are very very close to a pre war heckel CC2 and the pre war C crooks are thicker walled and slightly more resistant (and thus more stable). The D type suits my pre war instrument. It is very even over the whole range of the bassoon right up to top E and although it lacks some of the character of the heckel the increase in reliability and dynamic range has me seriously looking at using it all the time. And increases my curiosity to try a Bell bassoon!

New links on links pages

2008-12-12T08:34:00.001-08:00

I have finally started updating my links page with useful bassoon information that I have stumbled across on the web. I was keeping these bits for that "free time" to post them which of course doesn't work as they have been building up. So my early New Year's resolution is that if I find them useful and interesting I will put them up on my site as soon as I have viewed them. Sounds good in theory!

http://www.tomhardybassoon.com/links.php

Tool Trays

2008-09-30T09:59:00.000-07:00

Tools Tray

Another ebay find. When I was out playing with the Trondheim Symphony Orchestra earlier this year - www.tso.no - I was very impressed that every wind player had a tray for reeds and tools on their music stand. They were metal and heavy so not exactly something to put in your bag.

The one I found here www.dougbrill.com/trays.html
is light and well made.

Karen Geoghegan Fulham Palace Recital, June 2008

2008-07-03T03:08:00.000-07:00

Karen Geoghegan – CD launch recital 10th June, Fulham Palace.

As promised, more on Karen's recital - I was asked to write a review for the British Double Reed Society magazine and a cut down version of this will appear in the next mag.

A warm summer evening, an unusual venue, an unusual programme and a bassoonist could easily have been a recipe for an empty hall. But when the bassoonist is Karen Geoghegan and the event was the launching of her new CD on Chandos records it was transformed into a very special evening that none of the family, friends and colleagues who came to the idyllic setting of Fulham Palace will forget.

I had followed Karen’s progress since just before the BBC’s Classical Star programme thrust her into the limelight and was keen to support the launching of a CD of bassoon music as this is hardly a daily occurrence. But apart from a table in the foyer with the CD’s on display there was no other indication that this event was to revolve around the CD release. Instead we were given a sheet of paper with some programme notes for a bassoon recital that looked sufficiently taxing that my main concern was whether Karen would make it to the end! However, as soon as she began this concern vanished - if there is one quality that has stood out each time I have heard her play it is her ability to make playing the bassoon sound effortless! And she maintained this right through her recital.

She began with Pierné - Solo de Concert, which was suitably romantic and eloquent. It became apparent immediately that despite Richard Shaw’s excellent and sympathetic accompaniment on the piano that this wooden room with no curtains or soft furnishings of any kind was going to make the boudoir grand piano sound very over-powering as soon as there was anything above mezzo piano to play no matter how subtly he played and if I could have found a blanket to throw over it I would have done. There then followed a movement from Englishman Peter Hope’s Concertino for bassoon and orchestra arranged for bassoon and piano. This is a piece that Graham Salvage recorded with the Royal Ballet Sinfonia in 2001 and this worked as a good contrast to the Pierné, before we returned to France for the Dutilleux - Sarabande et Cortège, one of the many test pieces written for the Paris Conservatoire and one of the most demanding. Again, Karen negotiated the extreme technical demands of this piece admirably and created a wonderful swagger for the Cortège section. The last piece before the interval was the only piece that appears on the CD - the Jacobi - Introduction and Polonaise. Although this is more convincing work when played with orchestra and the fists full of notes for the piano arrangement were a workout for Richard Shaw, it was played with such humour and élan that there were no complaints from a very enthusiastic audience.

Whilst sipping refreshments on the lawn and talking to one of her fellow students it hit me that although Karen plays on a standard Fox 201D, her open throat and relaxed embouchure and liquid vibrato don’t immediately make you thing “ah, a pupil of Mr. X or Y”. She has stamped her individuality on the bassoon in the true UK tradition that Sir Thomas Beecham would be proud of.

After the interval we returned for a lovely rendition of the Telemann - Sonata in F minor followed by Boutry – Interferences – a very strange piece familiar to me from Knut Sonstevold’s BIS recording from the early 80’s but one that has not grown on me through familiarity, despite it being a good performance from Karen. Finally she was joined by fellow Royal Academy students Charlotte Skinner (Violin), Liam Buckley (viola) and Zoe Marshall (cello) for a fabulous performance of the Francois Devienne’s Quartet in C Major – a piece full of effervescent fun. The balance with the strings was wonderful and this was a triumphant end to a very enjoyable recital. Let’s hope Karen gets a Wigmore Hall recital in that magical acoustic sooner rather than later, where more of the double reed fraternity should attend to be amazed!

Karen Geoghegan

2008-06-20T00:27:00.000-07:00

On June 10th I had the pleasure of attending Karen Geoghegan's bassoon recital at Fulham Palace. I say "pleasure" sincerely as it's not often that as a bassoonist one goes to hear another bassoonist and can just sit back and enjoy the ride. Too often we are not the best audience for other players of our own breed - and I am sure that goes for most instruments. The attention can be stuck on the potential pitfalls and technique and the "oh I don't do this bit like that".

Not so with Karen. Her performances are utterly musical, completely her own and the technique is so fluid and effortless that I thoroughly enjoyed the whole programme.

This was an event to mark the release of her first CD on Chandos.

What did surprise me was the fact that family, friends and fellow students from the Royal Academy made up a rather small (though very enthusiastic) audience. I had thought with the amount of music press carrying the latest about her efforts that more of us would have come out on a sunny Tuesday evening to go to Fulham Palace. The venue (delightful) being a bit off the beaten track is not easy to find, nor was it easy to book tickets and get through on the phone line (no online ordering). My ticket had not actually arrived so I even had to call to get another one set aside. (It came the next day - correct address, just no STAMP on the envelope!).

More detailed review later.

Activating my blog

2008-06-17T02:26:00.000-07:00

I created a blog page a long time ago and have never used it, but now find there are things worth talking about that don't really fit on my website as such (concert reviews etc) so this is step 1 - linking it from my website.

Music Matters

2007-03-16T05:34:00.000-07:00

The world has gone blog crazy. So I thought it time to join the craziness.

Music matters - i.e. things to do with music and the fact that as a language music DOES matter to a lot of us.

Music Matters was already taken as a blog so I need to look that up for a start. Hence this blog is my user name on the end - as I play the bassoon amongst other things.