Video Interview, Lola Descours on Bassoon Steppes

The bassoon rarely features prominently on lists of solo instruments – few non-bassoonists could easily name more than a handful of concertante works for the instrument, nor many moments in the orchestral spotlight.

Inevitably, then, bassoonists often turn to transcriptions and new commissions to flesh out their repertoire – and Lola Descours's new solo album Bassoon Steppes, with pianist Paloma Kouider, is no exception. Focusing on Russian works, with Rachmaninov's sonata in G minor (originally for cello) occupying pride of place, it's supplemented by a newly-composed work by Lera Auerbach.

Lola caught up with us via video to talk about the ingredients that shaped this album.

Where did the idea first come from to assemble this programme – all Russian, all transcriptions – and record it?

The idea came from the Tchaikovsky Competition Award, which I won in 2019; it was a real springboard for my desire to introduce the bassoon more as a solo instrument. Maybe playing Lensky's Aria in the final made me realise that the warm and melancholic colour of the bassoon suits Russian music especially well, in my opinion.

We all know the bassoon as the Grandfather in Prokofiev's Peter and the Wolf, and I thought what could be more natural than to start from the noun from Russian music, to bring the listener to discover the bassoon in a different way.

Apart from the commissioned work by Lera Auerbach, all the pieces are indeed arrangements – maybe because in the 19th century, strings and piano were the main solo instruments, and only a few wind instruments could have great repertoire during this century, sometimes thanks to strong human encounters between performer and composer, such as Brahms with the clarinettist Richard Mühlfeld. But unfortunately this has not been the case for the bassoon. That's why we need to transcribe music.

On the other hand, the bassoon was always very present in Russian orchestral music – in Tchaikovsky's symphonies, a lot; in Rachmaninov's piano concertos; in Glinka's operas; in Rimsky-Korsakov's Scheherazade, for example, in Stravinsky's Rite of Spring, of course – and many, many appearances in Prokofiev and Shostakovich. So with this tradition of transcriptions so dear to Russia, this CD, for me, is the opportunity to create an homage to all these composers while opening the way for the bassoon as a solo instrument.

Despite having been used in Handel's time to allude to death, and by Stravinsky to conjure up a pagan ritual, today the bassoon often ends up being used as a shorthand for lighthearted buffoonery, or for adorable clumsiness in nature documentaries! How did things get this way?

The bassoon is indeed used a lot in dramatic moments, particularly in opera – maybe its warm and low, but at the same time intimate and fragile, timbre gives it a certain authenticity. Perhaps it allows itself, more than other instruments, to evoke fragility – or the 'adorable clumsiness' you just mentioned.

And of course the inimitable staccato gives the bassoon a prominent place in cartoons and in nature documentaries. In our album, with Paloma, you can hear the bassoon in this role mostly in the Shostakovich Preludes – the role in which we are most used to hearing it, like sarcastic, dark or clownish.

My desire in this album is to broaden these perspectives of the bassoon, and to also show its lyrical and vocal qualities.

The notes to this album mention early audiences for the Rite of Spring mistaking the bassoon's high register for a saxophone. Can you see yourself performing repertoire in addition to the kinds of pieces adapted for this album?

If in 1913 the audience for the Rite of Spring in the Théâtre des Champs-Elysées in Paris could have mistaken the high register of the bassoon for a saxophone, I think it's quite different today – because woodwind sounds have changed a lot during this century. They used to be acidic, clear-timbred, and today I think we prefer them to be round, warm and more homogeneous. So even if the bassoon is a wind instrument, it seems to me to be closer to the cello or the viola than to the saxophone.

How much modification did Rachmaninov's cello sonata require when you came to adapt it for your own instrument?

Indeed very few changes had to be made. A few high notes were played an octave lower in the first movement, some tapped strings became arpeggios of course, but not so many things. I think the main part of the work is more to approach these very long Romantic phrases – the very long phrasing – and the cello vibrato. We're not used to playing like that on the bassoon.

Generally, transcription was a big part of our work in this album – for us to be inspired by the original instrument, to get as close as possible to it, and at the same time offering, with this adaptation, a new perspective and a new light. That was our purpose.

How much input did you have into the composition for Lera Auerbach's I Walk Unseen, which you commissioned?

When I got in touch with Lera, I sent her an excerpt from the Tchaikovsky Competition – again, this Lensky Aria from Onegin. And she was thrilled by the vocal quality of the bassoon, and I think she didn't expect to be interested in this project...!

We talked several times about my musical tastes, and as it was the first time for her writing for the bassoon, we studied together the different contemporary possibilities, effects the bassoon offers. Then once the work was composed, Paloma and I played it twice for her, and we were very inspired by her advice. She always told us "you can go more extreme, it's never too extreme for me." It's maybe much more Russian than French, one might say.