We met in the dusty recesses of the Hunleth Music Company in St. Louis, 1964. I was doing graduate work at Southern Illinois University and had come into the city for a concert of the St. Louis Symphony Orchestra. It was a cold, bleak spring Saturday afternoon and I had a few hours to wander about before the concert.
I happened to walk past a music store that had the feeling of Dickens' The Old Curiosity Shop, with hope that a stop in the store and thought of perhaps finding an interesting piece of bassoon music, or, if luck would have it, an old Heckel bocal. A world-tired salesman who seemed to be looking forward to the end of his week showed me several old bassoon wrecks. Then he opened a strange shaped case and there she was, my St. Louis Woman.
I heard her voice for the first time a few years before. A friend of mine at the University of Wisconsin introduced me to the haunting and seductive sound of the French bassoon as played on records by such artists as Maurice Allard and Paul Hongne. It was a siren sound that echoed in my head, having a strange hollowness that I found appealing.
My eyes lit up as the salesman opened the case. It was not a Buffet but a Cundy-Bettoney. A Cundy-Bettoney? I had never heard of it. I wanted it anyway! The salesman could not believe his good fortune. "Fifty dollars" he said, "only fifty dollars." I had twenty five dollars cash. He said "I'll tell you what I'll do for you. You look like an honest young fellow and I'll trust a college student from Southern Illinois. You give me your twenty five dollars and send the rest in three payments over the next three months." The salesman no doubt felt he had made the deal of the year, even if he never saw or heard from me again. I had my first St. Louie Woman and was in heaven.
As I found out when I got back to my practice room, my French belle was difficult. Any relationship between my sound and that of Allard of Hongne was accidental, plus, my intonation was unspeakable. "Tell you what I'll do for you. . ." echoed in my head. I felt like a fool.
It was difficult for me when I began playing the French bassoon. At that time few other bassoonists took much interest in it, which was also true of my teachers. A number of bassoonists seemed to perceive the French bassoon as peculiar and were in varying degrees threatened, defensive or, at best, disinterested.
This left me on my own. I learned by trial and error and a French fingering chart. Later I found out that the original bocal, which was the only French bocal I had, was horrible. I learned from the late R. W. MacGibbon, the Milwaukee woodwind repairman and bassoon builder, that he considered the Cundy-Bettoney a good instrument. They, according to him, were all made for the U.S. Army at about the same time of World War I. (Every one that I have seen has U.S.A.Q.C. stamped on the bell). The bassoons manufactured by Harry Bettoney in Boston, Massachusetts used as a copy a Buffet owned by Adolph Laus who was then first bassoonist of the Boston Symphony. Structurally, they are all made of maple with the wing and one side of the boot being lined. The instrument has seventeen keys. They do not compare with a good Buffet but make a good student grade instrument.
That brings up one of the major problems for anyone interested in trying the French bassoon today; namely, the lack of decent French instruments in the United States. There are still old French bassoons to be found in various closets, attics, backrooms of music stores and pawnshops but most of these instruments date from the 1920's or 1930's or even earlier and are in complete disrepair.
As there is recently more interest in the French bassoon it is now easier for someone wanting to try the instrument to contact someone who has one to help out with reeds, etc.
Often a fingering chart dating from the time the instrument was manufactured is helpful as various changes in the Buffet have been influenced by the Professors of bassoon at the Paris Conservatory, most of whom published fingering charts.
I have read about French bassoonists changing over to the Heckel system in very short periods of time. My impression is that a change in the opposite direction generally takes longer and requires more patience.
It is now many years since I entered that music store in St. Louis. I now have a fine Buffet as well as an excellent Heckel but I continue to be seduced and intrigued by the beautiful sound of some of the great bassoonists who play the French bassoon and I'm closer to making my St. Louie Woman sing the siren song.