Wow! What a tremendous boost for all of us lucky enough to attend this conference. And it was a larger group than many of us expected. With inflation raging in most every country it seemed unlikely that we would have a big turnout. But double reed musicians from every corner of the globe really moved mountains to attend, and in everyone's view we had an excellent conference, perhaps our best to date.
Certainly it was a wonderful surprise to greet 22 musicians from Finland! Even host and organizer Laurence Taylor was taken aback by that. It was our great fortune to find among us Honorary member Karl Ohlberger of Vienna, Honorary member Lyndesay Langwill of Edinburgh, Gunter Angerhöfer of Leipzig, D.D.R. and Professor Gheorghe Cuciureanu of Budapest, Rumania.
Our sincerest thanks go out to Laurence Taylor and all the organizing committee and helpers who must have had many fears that the whole conference might not take place, so great was the task of arranging for everything and everyone. All was in excellent readiness, our dormitory accommodations and other lodgings were superior in comfort (and panorama!) - food and drink was delightful and plentiful.
I will make only a few reflective comments about the conference at this time. Dan Stolper and I will include much more complete information and different points of view in the third issue (1980) of The Double Reed.
For many bassoonists, Edinburgh was a first valuable introduction to the potentials and possibilities of the French system bassoon. Maurice Allard wanted to impress upon us the depth of talent throughout France, so he invited his friends and several former students who are the bassoon professors or solo bassoonists of orchestras throughout all France, rehearsed them in a demanding and artistically beautiful ensemble program and directed all their spirit and artistry to us in the form of a superior recital on Wednesday night. The French bassoons sang out with appealing warmth, power and resonance. Every player gave his sincerest effort, Maurice Allard conducted as musically as he performs and the IDRS audience received the program with great pleasure, warmth and enthusiasm. (The first half of this concert, played by English oboist Malcolm Messiter was also superb in every way.)
We were fortunate to have any English or Scottish players at all because of the recently-ended strike of U.K. musicians against the budgetary cuts of the BBC; we were happy to hear that the dispute was reasonably settled, and delighted in the energetic sounds of the Scottish "Big Band Double Reeds" which opened our conference on the afternoon of the first day (Tuesday 12th August) .
The first evening included interesting bassoon work from the U.S.A. and from London, England and Leipzig, Germany. Robert Olson performed in two good chamber pieces (Alec Wilder and W. Scott) and introduced two 50's jazz bassoon solos to Europe: Stuart MacKay's "Wild Woodwinds" bassoon solos with instrumental accompaniment -Ode to a Mode and Fagott Gavotte. William Waterhouse and Martin Gatt along with Gunter Angerhöfer donated "very"unusual items including Fred Godfrey's old favorite, "Lucy Long," Stravinsky's strange. Song Without Name for two bassoons, works for one and two tenoroons with bassoon continuo (performed very nicely on Buffet bassoon by American bassoonist Ronald Klimko) and lastly E. Toller's Double Concerto for two bassoons and piano.
This editor could not attend all performances - there was just too much happening for that. But I heard many fine reactions to the performance by Juhani Tapaninen, bassoonist from Helsinki, Finland, of Kalevi Aho's Quintet for Bassoon and String Quartet during the Wednesday morning concert. I did hear the same composer's Quintet for Oboe and string quartet on Thursday, played by Jouko Teikari, and found it absolutely beautiful! I hope this composer will become much more widely-known as a result of these two examples of his talent (Kalevi Aho was born in 1949).The excellent string quartet performing both these works was the Finnish Radio Symphony String Quartet (Jukka-Pekka Saraste, 1st violin; Jaakko Ilves, 2nd violin; Seppo Ristolainen, viola; and Risto Poutanen, violoncello) .
Chris Weait presented a most impressive concert with his wife, Margaret Barstow violoncello. This Toronto, Canada couple have really played together often enough to parallel in their perfect teamwork the performance of members of a world class string quartet. I've never heard Chris play so convincingly and well, and Margaret's `cello tone just filled the Reid Hall auditorium. Their program included a transcribed Boccherini Sonata, a rare and beautiful gem of a musical composition: Airs de la Renaissance Espagnole by Danielle Zanettovich, Hindemith's Vier Stücke, a premiere performance of Five Movements for Bassoon and Violoncello by Alfred Fisher and a crowd-pleasing "Two Rags" by Arthur Frankenpohl.
A double reed group from Brussels, Belgium pleased us exceedingly. Jan de Maeyer, oboe; Louis Gilis, oboe; Martine Loubry-Buyens, oboe; Luc Loubry, bassoon and Paul Vandenwegaete, bassoons, presented an interesting concert giving us insight into a strong Belgian national school of playing, tone quality preference, and precision performance. Particularly in works by Boismortier I felt that the mood shifts achieved in the difference movements and the exquisite shaping and ornamenting of phrases was as fine as I have ever heard. Andre Jolivet's Sonatine for oboe and bassoon came off with great charm and panache, and the closing Romantic work by Belgian composer C. Yvon was well worth hearing.
The Thursday evening concert featured Arthur Grossman doing a very nice and rarely-heard work by Anton Reicha,Variations pour le Basson, Armin Schibler's Monologue and William O. Smith's Tribute to the Bassoon.
Friday morning and evening concerts were both very interesting. Gunter Angerhöfer performed a Galliard Sonata on his period bassoon with Bill Waterhouse accompanying on harpsichord. What a nice natural tone Gunter got on his old instrument; a fine Baroque style too, very convincing. Werner Schulze of Austria gave us some modern sounds for contrabassoon and (taped) whale.
I realized a long-held dream of bringing a quartet of professional bassoonists from North America to one of our IDRS summer conferences who all play the Buffet/Crampon French bassoon. My group, comprising Kim Laskowski of Brooklyn, New York; Charles Holdeman of Wilmington, Delaware; Dr. Ronald Klimko of Moscow, Idaho and myself, couldn't have found a better conference site for our first public performance - Edinburgh, Europe! After good rehearsals in New York in early August and more tidying up during our first days at the conference, I felt very proud of what we had to offer. We sincerely hope that everyone who heard us in a program of varied bassoon ensembles ending with the famed Corrette "le Phenix," will agree with us that the French bassoon is an instrument which should be admired and loved for its expressive and ensemble possibilities by all musicians, even if some prefer to hear only the German-system bassoon in orchestral settings.
Charles Holdeman presented several fine solos for French bassoon with organ to end the morning concert on Friday. He did very well, especially after working as vigorously as the rest of us in the quartets just before. I think that Charles is to be much admired for having the courage to be the first professional bassoonist in North America (since 1953) who has chosen to play only the French bassoon for all his engagements, including orchestra, chamber music and solo.
The final concert on Friday evening offered us an opportunity to hear the winning composition in this year's IDRS new music competition:
CONCERTO for Woodwind Quintet
and Harpsichord
by Ivar Lunde,
Jnr.
The concerto was very excellently performed by a quintet from Scotland. Unfortunately, the program did not give individual players' names; I would like to mention them in future after checking with Laurence Taylor in Edinburgh. I do know that the bassoonist was Leslie Wilson, bassoon solo of the Scottish National Orchestra. I wished that the harpsichord were actually used more often in a soloistic rather than an add-on capacity, but the overall impression of the work was a very good one. It was significant that the prize money for the winning composition, 250 pounds sterling, was donated by the Musicians' Union. Judges for the competition were Martin Dalby, Head of Music, B.B.C. Scotland and Professor Kenneth Leighton, Reid Professor of Music, University of Edinburgh. The prize check was formally presented to the composer by Jack Jenkins, Scottish District Organiser for the Musicians' Union. (Others who contributed generously towards the success of this summer's IDRS Edinburgh Conference were mentioned in the programs:
The final ensemble of the evening programme and the Conference was a Trio from Vienna, Alfred Hertel, oboe; Werner Schulze, bassoon and Claus Christian Schustter, piano and harpsichord.
Three works were given First British Performance:
The Trio gave an excellent performance. All are certainly fine players. I was struck by two unusual aspects of this ensemble. The oboist plays a French oboe, not the traditional Zuleger Vienna oboe with its distinctive individual sound. I have no problem with this, but it was a surprise to us all. Also, if my ears can be believed, I think this trio performed at A 440, another strange difference for musicians from Vienna.(Normal pitch in Vienna today is about A=447.) The oboist and bassoonist performed with the same harpsichord used earlier that evening for the Ivar Lunde Concerto. There was no obvious change of equipment or noticeable discomfort for either double reed artist while playing with the same instrument used with the five Scottish players minutes before. Because of a mix-up in mailing material from France to Edinburgh, there was no time available to insert biographical information on each of the French bassoonists who performed so beautifully on the Wednesday evening concert. I assured Mr. Allard that we would print this information in the next issue of our IDRS publications: