Favourites, Weber’s Bassoon Concerto turns 200!

Carl Maria von Weber’s bassoon concerto is 200 years old as of 3rd August 2022. Maybe. Weber originally wrote his bassoon concerto between the 14th and 17th of November 1811 for the Munich bassoonist Georg Friedrich Brandt, who subsequently performed it in a concert given on 28th December 1811 in the Munich Hoftheater. Weber later revised his score and submitted an autographed manuscript dated 3rd August 1822 to his publisher Schlesinger. I can therefore with reasonable justification cite this date and wish a Happy Birthday to the Weber Bassoon Concerto!

I learned the bassoon as a second instrument alongside the clarinet through school and university. The bassoon is sadly the least popular woodwind instrument to play, often taken up later due to reasons of hand size and instrument cost, but is a wonderfully diverse instrument capable of portraying a wide variety of emotions. The bassoon can be extremely comical, as demonstrated by representing the cranky grandfather in Peter and the Wolf, or in the theme to Ivor the Engine. It can also be hauntingly beautiful as in the opening to The Rite of Spring. For me the best pieces for the instrument have elements of both extremes, and I think the Weber Concerto is the best example of this.

The Weber and Mozart bassoon concertos are the two titans in the genre, but of the two the Weber is notably more difficult to play, especially in the third movement. The concerto is in three movements, Allegro ma non troppo, Adagio, and Rondo: Allegro. As a bassoon player myself, the third movement is the one that fills me with fear and awe, depending if I am trying to play it or listening to it. The opening movement is the one with the widest variety in interpretation by different players, whilst the Adagio is an exquisite example of a classical era slow movement.

Weber gives the player a vague instruction in the first movement: “Fast, but not too much”. I’ve heard this movement at a wide variety of speeds, but my personal preference is for it to occasionally feel like it wants to push on, only to be held back in the next phrase, just managing to keep a semblance of control over the whole movement, and saving the virtuosic fireworks for the final movement. My favourite recording of this movement is by Theo Plath and the Deutsche Radio Philarmonie. There are moments in the movement where the bassoon has to fade from soloistic prominence to an accompanying role, and in this recording they are blended with delightful subtlety.

I have always enjoyed slow movements - as a wind player I think they give you the best opportunity to demonstrate the full expressive capabilities of the instrument over a simple phrase, or even a single note. Weber’s second movement is every bit as beautiful as the Mozart slow movement. My favourite performance of this is by Laurence Perkins with the Manchester Camerata. This recording comes across as more darkly expressive and more mournful than some others; the gentle and only lightly ornamented bassoon melody is allowed to sing delicately over a restrained accompaniment, showing off the bassoon at its most expressive but understated best.

The final movement is very difficult: I cannot do the movement justice myself, so it is natural for me to be instantly impressed by the most virtuosic performances. I am wary that I can find myself put off slightly when it feels like the performer is showing off too much, even though concertos such as this were written precisely for the performer to show off. In this case though my favourite recording is an extremely virtuosic one, Bram van Sambeek with the Swedish Chamber Orchestra. Van Sambeek not only manages to make it sound effortless, but at the same time extracts a wide dynamic contrast all too often lost in this movement, and takes just enough time between sections to allow the listener time to take a sympathetic breath, before continuing apace towards the show-stopping finale.

Special mention should go to Laurence Perkins who this year is celebrating the Weber Concerto in style, performing it across the country with numerous different orchestras as well as conducting a special all-bassoon arrangement of the work on the 3rd August in London.