Bassoon concerto

A bassoon concerto is a concerto for bassoon accompanied by a musical ensemble, typically orchestra. Like bassoon sonatas, bassoon concerti were relatively uncommon until the twentieth century, although there are quite a few bassoon concerti from the Classical period. Some contemporary bassoon concerti are scored for solo bassoon and wind or string orchestras.

Baroque

Classical

Romantic

20th century

21st century

Other famous pieces for bassoon and orchestra include Berwald's Konzertstück, Elgar's Romance, Villa-Lobos's Ciranda Das Sete Notas, and Weber's Andante e Rondo Ongarese.

See also

Notes

Bassoon Concerto (Mozart)

The Bassoon Concerto in B flat major, K. 191/186e, written in 1774 by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, is the most often performed and studied piece in the entire bassoon repertory. Nearly all professional bassoonists will perform the piece at some stage in their career, and it is probably the most commonly requested piece in orchestral auditions – it is usually requested that the player perform excerpts from the concerto's first two movements in every audition.

Although the autograph score is lost, the exact date of its completion is known: 4 June 1774.

Mozart wrote the bassoon concerto when he was 18 years old, and it was his first concerto for a wind instrument. Although it is believed that it was commissioned by an aristocratic amateur bassoon player Thaddäus Freiherr von Dürnitz, who owned seventy-four works by Mozart, this is a claim that is supported by little evidence. Scholars believe that Mozart may have written fivebassoon concerti, but that only the first has survived.

Concerto

A concerto (from the Italian: concerto, plural concerti or, often, the anglicised form concertos) is a musical composition, whose characteristics have changed over time. In the 17th century, "sacred works for voices and orchestra were typically called concertos." J. S. Bach "was thus reflecting a long-standing tradition when he used the title `concerto' for many of the works that we know as cantatas.". But in recent centuries, up to the present, a concerto is a piece usually composed in three parts or movements, in which (usually) one solo instrument (for instance, a piano, violin, cello or flute) is accompanied by an orchestra or concert band.

The etymology is uncertain, but the word seems to have originated from the conjunction of the two Latin words conserere (meaning to tie, to join, to weave) and certamen (competition, fight): the idea is that the two parts in a concerto, the soloist and the orchestra or concert band, alternate episodes of opposition, cooperation, and independence in the creation of the music flow.