(This fanciful story with its characters familiar to all bassoonists was submitted to me on two separate occasions by readers of the newsletter. But no one has to date claimed authorship. If the originator of this story will write to me I will be delighted to give him or her full mention in a coming issue. Editor.)
To most music-lovers, the end of the Beethoven year brought long sighs of relief. A well-earned vacation from Beethoven lay ahead, and everyone was relaxing. That is, all except bassoonists. No sooner had Guy Lombardo dropped his golden ball (to the tune of "Roll Over, Beethoven") than bassoon players, fagott spielers, les jouers du basson, I suonari di fagotto, and other clowns began to prepare for the 100th anniversary of the death of Leroy Milde.
Since Milde's passing in 1871, (1913, the actual Milde. Ed.) bassoonists have had little to celebrate. But in 1971 they intended to right all the wrongs done to bassoonists in this century (there was even a report of a solo player who planned to wrong the Rite). For those who are unfamiliar with the life and works of this artist of the double reed, we offer the following résumé.
Milde was born in the little town of Holzblas--am--Bokal to his aunt and uncle, but he began to live with his father and mother when he was one month old. One day, Herr Milde (vater), a sailor in the German navy, brought back a bassoon from England, then the double-reed capital of the world (hence the expression, "bringing Kohlerts to Newcastle"). When the new instrument proved useless in grouse hunting he gave it to Leroy, who used it alternatively as a pool cue and as a baseball bat. But when a travelling bassoon salesman showed him the proper use of the instrument, his life quickly changed. His mother began to worry because he stopped playing or speaking to the other boys on the block. In fact, he stopped talking to everyone and everything except his bassoon. Late at night one could hear the youth mumbling sweet nothings to his horn. Psychiatrists came and went. All dismissed the case as hopeless. During this period, Leroy wrote some of his catchiest (if immature) tunes, such as the great C major arpeggio study, and the mysterious f# minor scale.
But the bassoon was not the only thing in the young artist's life. At the age of 20 he was felled by the femme fatale of bassoonery, Heckelina Weissenborn. Some called her just a crook, but others had greater respect for this woman with the remarkable tongue. Leroy fell too much in love with her to call her anything. Soon, they began sharing trill fingerings, and together they developed the first complete method for double-tonguing. Soon Milde was composing stacks and stacks of love duets. Unfortunately, his parents burned them all when he carelessly forgot to hide them one day. In the summer of 1861, the young lovers ran off to the cane fields of France and were not heard from again for three months.
But, when Heckelina later ran off with the young Italian flame, Gambaro Orefici, in the spring of 1862, Milde's life lost all meaning. He burned the signed copy of the Complete Bassoon Concertos of Vivaldi that Hecky (as he used to call her) had given him. He would stare at his bassoon for days, nervously clutching at his reed knife. After a few months he began to compose the first Konzert Etuden. They are filled with the angst and abandon of a dying bassoonist. In a short time, he began to de-compose: his pitifully demented mind began to seek revenge on the instrument that had given him so much. He began to write music against the bassoon instead of for it. With fiendish joy he found a new vision in his life -- to sin so other bassoonists might die. But he himself was rapidly wasting away, and on November 20, 1871, Leroy Milde was found dead, stretched out on his reed table.