Baroque bassoon

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A baroque bassoon with 4 keys (Bb, D, A flat and F)

The baroque bassoon is that construction of the bassoon , which together with the Baroque (z. B. the middle of the 17th century within the French royal court Jean de Hotteterre ) was created and today as part of the historical performance for playing baroque music is used .

The pitch range extends from double-flat to g '; z. Sometimes a 'is also required.

The dulcian , which was often referred to as the fagotto in early baroque scores, is a direct forerunner of the instrument . Innovations in the baroque bassoon were the division of the instrument into several separable parts, v. a. of the two tubes, a narrower length , a modified end piece and three to four keys, especially for the lowest notes. The sections could be made more precisely than the one-piece Dulzian; In addition, the individual parts were easier to transport.

The bassoon was a central instrument of basso continuo in the baroque era . Together with the oboes, it was often "switched" on and off again as a timbre by the composer in the course of a piece. It was also used as a solo instrument on various occasions, especially by Antonio Vivaldi . Johann Ernst Galliard and Georg Philipp Telemann gave the first solo sonatas for bassoon and basso continuo . In contrast to today's bassoon, the sound of the baroque instrument is rather rough, less nasal. It was only rarely used in pairs in the baroque orchestra, e.g. B. in the "Quoniam" of Bach's B minor Mass .

The bassoon hardly underwent any changes until around 1780, when semitone holes and a corresponding key system were added to it in the course of further development of the other instruments, so that the modern bassoon gradually emerged.

Contrabassoon

A contrabassoon , the largest known from back then, by Andreas Eichentopf (1670–1721), a “pipe maker” who worked in Nordhausen, has survived. It has a length of 2.68 m and an acoustic length of 4.5 m. Based on this single instrument, which is known from his workshop and is in the Musikinstrumentenmuseum Leipzig, experts call Eichentopf a great master of his craft.

Some well-known baroque bassoonists

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Martin Lücke: in MGG, person part, volume 6, column 151