Salut de Paris! As mentioned before I am spending this school year on sabbatical leave of absence in Paris studying the French-system bassoon with Maurice Allard. So far it has been a fantastic experience and a great privilege for me. Moreover, it was an additional and wonderful surprise to discover that Mr. Allard is not only one of the world's greatest bassoonists but a great teacher of the instrument as well. Right now I am struggling with the same fundamental scales and techniques that any "élève" of the French bassoon must master under Allard's careful, demanding tutelage--at age 47 a pretty humbling experience!
But this struggle and toil enables me to make some preliminary observations on the comparison and contrast of some of the technical and pedagogical procedures between the French and German-systems, and I would like to share some of these with you.
The first observation is to note how precisely the French system is defined by maître Allard. This is true in all technical areas: embouchure, articulation, vibrato, reeds, and, most especially, fingerings. This contrasts sharply with the great variety of instruction I've received from various teachers of the German bassoon over the years. Many are still teaching and using an old-fashioned "overbite-type" embouchure; and when vibrato is taught at all, it can be diaphragm only, throat only, jaw or lip only, or any combinations thereof. Similar varieties of approach involve reed construction. And finally, of course, there is the problem of fingerings. As one moves from teacher to teacher of the German bassoon, one must change fingerings to suit the new teacher. For while there is a general group of mutually agreed upon fingerings, every German-system player seems to have his "pet" fingerings which he often insists all his students use as well. The Cooper anthology attests to the diversity of fingering applied to the German bassoon!
For the French-system instrument there are basically three sets of fingerings. The first set is the acoustically best fingering for each note. These are used for slower passages, on the first and last notes of faster passages when possible, and for special emphasis and/or interpretation. The second set is related to the first -- often they're the same -- but involves a "simplification" of the first designed for greater speed and velocity. This set is the one most often used and practiced. The third set consists of specialized fingerings in order to get certain notes to speak quicker in slurred passages, for getting the ultissimo high notes out even easier, or for playing some notes with especially soft dynamics. To learn the application of these fingerings one must practice the major and minor scales to perfection (and I mean perfection!) in Allard's prescribed patterns. (These patterns are clearly outlined in his two publications: Methode de Basson and Tablature Trilles Gammes diatoniques et chromatiques, both published by Gerard Billaudot, Paris.) Besides practicing the scales stepwise, it is also required to master each one in turn in 3rds, 4ths, 5ths, 6ths, 7ths, and octaves. The same procedure is followed for the chromatic scale. (The playing of the scales in intervals gives one good practice at using the third set of special slurring fingerings.) It's really quite a regimen of scalework! In all my studies on the German bassoon I was never required to strive for such technical precision and accuracy -- nor, I confess, did I require it of my students.
Perhaps the difference between this clarity of technical definition for the French bassoon and the diversity one finds applied to the German instrument can better be understood by comparing the French way of life, as exemplified by the French language, to other languages and cultures. The French tend to prefer using their word for a given object, situation, or description and to resist the intrusion of foreign words (such as "franglais" as they call words coming from English) into their language. When words do come to be used (such as "le weekend") it is to fill a void where no French word exists. In the English language, by contrast, one often borrows freely from many sources, or one might even "coin" a word -- make one up -- when the occasion arises. The final musical result of this difference in attitude and approach tends to give the German bassoon much greater flexibility in the areas of timbre, pitch, and dynamics, but at the price of greater accuracy and facility where the French bassoon tends to excel.
This brings me to observation number two: an average player of the French bassoon is most often technically far superior to most "fagott" players (as the French call them). Phil Gottling, who has also studied with Allard calls the technique of most German-system players "situation technique"--just enough to get by. Allard's students all seem to have another even faster "gear" technically, no matter how difficult the piece is. On a number of occasions I have attended Allard's master classes at the Conservatoire to help adjudicate his students. Here each student in turn performs the same piece with orchestral excerpts occasionally added as well. They are then rated from best to worst for their performance by the judges, and the results are read to them at the end. The pieces performed have varied from some well known to most German bassoon players such as the Telemann F minor Sonata, to works less well known because they were written for the French bassoon, such as the Concerto Ironico by Pierre Max Dubois, and, most recently, a devilishly difficult piece: Fantasie pour Basson et Piano by Gilles Boizard, which soars up to a high F at one point, and adds "insult to injury" by ending pianissimo on a high E! Even the poorest performance of these works in the class has always been technically far superior to the capabilities of most German-system players, who are often awed by the "nosiness" and overall demands of these French pieces. While I grant that technique is not an end in itself, it still strikes me that the same rigorous and precise technical approach applied to German bassoon pedagogy might produce some even better equipped German-system players in the future. For anyone interested in giving it a try, I recommend picking up Allard's publications mentioned earlier, locking the practice room door for 4 to 6 hours a day for awhile, and not quitting until they can all be played "parfait". (Incidentally, all scales must be done from memory for Allard!)
The final observation has to do with similarities rather than differences: Forget the myth that the French bassoon reed is vastly different from the German. Granted there are differences: The French reed is bigger, has more cane left on it overall--especially on the sides; is played with a wider tip opening, requiring greater muscular control by the embouchure; and has the tip burred by a file to eliminate undesirable "overvibration" there, which then produces too much of a metalic-like quality. But the general shape in terms of the "heart" of the reed at the tip is really very similar to a German reed. There is a beautiful "thumb-nail" (or "half-moon" if you prefer) heart in every one of Allard's reeds. The generally accepted concept of a French reed by most German players is that there is no "heart" as such in a French reed. But this is just not so. It was only after I had discovered that a heart is there, that I was able to begin making decent reeds for the French bassoon.
Studying the Buffet with Allard is proving to be a lot of hard work. But I still believe as strongly as ever that the bassoon players of the future could (and perhaps should) learn to play both with equally great artistry. Many players of the French bassoon are dismayed with conductors who have begun to specify which bassoon they want played. Wouldn't it be marvelous in the future if the bassoonists were to tell the conductor which instrument they were going to play for each work on the program?!!