DR V2.2: COMPARING FINGERINGS FOR EVOLVING BASSOONS FROM THE SECOND HALF OF THE 18th CENTURY TO THE BEGINNING OF THE 19th CENTURY

COMPARING FINGERINGS FOR EVOLVING BASSOONS FROM THE SECOND HALF OF THE 18th CENTURY TO THE BEGINNING OF THE 19th CENTURY

Harold Eugene Griswold

Editor's Note: This excellent, practical and extremely clear comparison chart of fingerings for early bassoons forms part of a full doctoral dissertation which will surely be welcomed by the world's bassoon scholars: "Etienne Ozi (1754-1813): Bassoonist Teacher and Composer". Mr. Griswold is an excellent bassoonist teacher and bassoon researcher at Towson State College in Baltimore, Maryland, U.S.A.

Specific Fingerings

The following pages are devoted to the fingering charts used by bassoonists in the second half of the eighteenth century and in the beginning of the nineteenth century. Below is a list of the fingering charts used in this study. The letters preceding the titles of each method (entitled Chart Reference) correspond to the letters in the second column of the cumulative fingering charts found in Table 4.

Chart Reference

Four-keyed Bassoon

D -- Diderot and d'Alembert, "Basson de Hautbois", in Encyclopédie ou dictionnaire raisonnée des sciences, des arts et des métiers, Nouvelle impression en facsimilé de la première edition de 1751-1780, Stuttgart: Friedrich Frommann Verlag, 1967.

Five-keyed Bassoon

H -- Jacques Hotteterre, Méthode pour apprendre é jouer en peu de tems de la flûte, Paris: Bailleux, c. 1765.

C -- Pierre Cugnier, "Le Basson", in Jean Benjamin La Borde's Essai sur la musique ancienne et moderne, Paris: P. D. Pierres, 1780.

Six-keyed Bassoon

O1 -- Etienne Ozi, "Tablature du Basson ancien tels que sont ceux de Bizey, Prudent &c." in Méthode nouvelle et raisonnée pour le basson, Paris: Boyer, 1787.

Seven-keyed Bassoon

O2 -- Etienne Ozi, "Tablature du Basson moderne", in Méthode nouvelle et raisonnée pour le basson.

O3 -- Etienne Ozi, "Tablature du basson" in Nouvelle méthode de basson, Paris: imprimerie du Conservatoire, 1803.

F1 -- Joseph Frölich, "Scala für einen Dresd'ner Fagott mit der hohen A und Kiappe", in Vollständige theoretischpraktische Musiklehre für alle bei dem Orchester gebrauliche Instrumente, zum Gebrauche fur Musikdirektoren, Lehrer, und Liebhaber, Bonn: N. Simrock, 18101811.

Eight-keyed Bassoon

F2 -- Joseph Frölich, "Scale für den Fagott", in Systematischer Unterricht in den Vorzüglichsten Orchester Instrumenten, mit Direktion eines und Singshores, Würzburg: Franz Bauer, 1829.

R -- Anthony Rees, "Scale of the Bassoon", in Cyclopaedia, London and Philadelphia, 1810-1824. (Chart is dated 1807).

ALL -- All of the above-mentioned charts.

TABLE 4

LATE EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY BASSOON FINGERINGS AS FOUND IN THE FINGERING CHARTS OF DIDEROT AND L'ALEMBERT (1752), HOTTETERRE (1765), CUGNIER (1780}, OZI (1787 AND 1803), FRÖHLICH (1810 AND 1829), AND REES (1807)