(some interesting correspondence has recently crossed mydesk in reach. on to Past articles in The Double Reed and the journal. I pass these on to you as further amplifications to issues already addressed but, obviously, not completely answered. Bassoon Editor.)

Further reflections on a
Boehm-system bassoon mechanism

(In an effort to keep interest alive in reforming the bassoon, it is my pleasure to publish the following letter from Mr. John P. Newhill from Cheshaire, England. It is in response to my article from the the 1983 Journal on the Heckel/Boehm bassoon built for Percy Gatz.)

Dear Dr. Klimko,

I have recently read your article on the Boehm-system bassoon and the Heckel firm. I found it most interesting. I am a clarinettist who is interested in all woodwind mechanisms. I have published a number of articles on clarinet music (including "The Contribution of the Mannheim School to Clarinet Music" and "Rossini's Works for Clarinet") plus a book The Basset-Horn & its Music.

Quite frankly, I had got the impression that the Boehm oboe and bassoon had been written off and forgotten. I think you are absolutely right when you say that a simpler form of Boehm-system could have been the bassoon's "way out of the dark ages back in 1932".

Are you sure that the Heckel Boehm-system model in Illustration I (p. 20) was never made? In any case, I suggest that this model, plus a key for E-flat (for left ring finger) would be an ideal basis upon which to start. Most of the other Boehm- system bassoons are too complex. I know you recommend removing the "old" fork E-flat. This is very useful for slurs from C to E-flat, and in some ways is better than usual "long E-flat" as fitted to the flute, clarinet and saxophone xoo|xoo. In fact, some clarinettists have a fork E-flat/B-flat, which you mention at the end of your article, would be xoo|ooo for E-flat and oxo|ooo for E-natural. This we call the "double Boehm-system", and it has been fitted to one model of clarinet (and the Haseneier Boehm bassoon).

The Boehm mechanism of closing four holes with three fingers means that an additional trillkey is necessary. I am afraid that you have identified it wrongly in your diagrams. The key between the keys for "5" and "6" is an alternative B key, not a B-flat key. It is used for trilling A-B and for passages which contain B-flat/B.

There is one passage in your article which I do not understand. On page 21, you say that the "Gatz" bassoon "originally had the B tone hole standing closed F#, G, A- flat and A fingerings". All Boehm-system instruments have both the B-flat and the B-natural holes standing open, so what did Hans Moennig do?

You may be interested to know that one of the bassoonists of the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra had the butt of his bassoon modified, so that the keys for B-flat and A-flat were articulated. In this way, he had only one key for B-flat, A-flat and G-flat, instead of three separate keys. By fingering A and pressing the one key, he produced B-flat; if he then fingered G the key for his right finger automatically closed the B-flat hole and as the one key opened the A-flat hole also, he got A-flat. Similarly with the low F (this key also closed the A-flat hole). The thumb B-flat and A-flat were removed, and the F-sharp key connected to the B-flat and A-flat also. The latter two were lightly sprung to open when the F-sharp was depressed, but because they were articulated they closed (singly) by pressing "5" and "6". A rather complicated mechanism, but it made the scale of G-flat as easy as the scale of F.

Yours sincerely, John P. Newhill

Middle D on the Bassoon and the Bocal

(Concerning my recent article on the Graz Congress and MY thoughts on the bassoon's middle D, Richard Rusch writes.)

Dear Ron,

Concerning the "sometimes problem-child" note - middle D: thirty years ago Mac (MacGibbon) told me to add the B-flat (r.h. thumb) to an unstable D. It works like crazy. It also sets you up for a superior D/E one-finger trill. BOCALS: Mac surmised that a thicker bocal would stablilize many of the "bad" notes so he made his from .022 sheet. (Also surmising the others didn't use thick stock because it was very hard to work.) The thicker stock seems to have a tendency to lower the pitch overall. Not enough research on that, however. I can "feel" the D on a thin wall bocal, with my right hand, but I can't make it stop. I teach my students to use that D as the third balance test of a reed: #1. G/F/E, forte; G/F/E-flat piano; B/C/D/forte. I enjoyed your recap.

Dick Rusch

More information on Adolph Weiss

(From David Sogg comes the following letter concerning the "Incomplete" report on Adolph Weiss in last summer's journal.)

14 December, 1984 1 read the materials on Adolph Weiss in Journal of The IDRS, Summer 1984, with special interest, since I performed his 1944 Concerto for Bassoon and String Quartet in April, 1982, while at the University of Southern California. At the time, I was finishing up my Masters under Norman Herzberg.

The performance came about as follows: The Arnold Schoenberg Institute puts on an annual concert called "The Schoenberg Generations" featuring music by friends and students of the master. In 1982, the ASI's director, Leonard Stein (himself a Schoenberg student during the latter's last years in Los Angeles) programmed the Weiss Concerto, and asked Mr. Herzberg if he had any students who could perform it. I am most gratified that Mr. Herzberg chose me, even though I had just a month to learn the sometimes ridiculously difficult solo part.

In any case, the performance, along with members of the Almont Ensemble, went fairly well. All the high E's were there, but a couple of the harder technical passages were a little rough, though I don't think most listeners could really tell. The Los Angeles Times review of the concert devoted a full two sentences to the Weiss, saying that the performance was "fine" but that the piece was "vapid" (Los Angeles Times, 17 April, 1982).

Personally, there is much in the piece that I like a lot, as well as some things that I don't care for at all. The first movement is at times mysterious, and at others lively and almost cheerful. The slow movement is especially beautiful, and even contains a quote (in the first violin) from Beethoven's Eroica Symphony, though slightly twisted. The finale is the most problematic movement, with an angular, grotesque bassoon part superimposed over fast, cascading figurations in all the strings. I must say I cursed Mr. Weiss a bit when trying to learn some of the passages - three-octave downward slurs, very fast sextuplet passages up and down the instrument, and the like. I believe it when Don Christlieb says he had a "'house on fire' technique." But on the whole, I think I did a creditable job.

Sister Bernadette Kopp, whose doctoral dissertation on Weiss is quoted in the program notes, was in attendance at the concert. I talked to her briefly afterwards, but she unfortunately had to leave before I had a chance to ask her

much about Weiss. She mentions that the piece is 12-tone, though Weiss disputed that in the autobiography printed in The Journal. I would call it more a "6-tone" piece, because the same hexachord, consisting of a rising series of alternating minor seconds and minor thirds, is used over and over in the manner that the 12 tones are used in a dodecaphonic piece. (Thus the many sextuplets.)

A final note on Weiss: Don Christlieb says he was a first-rate chess player. Dr. Stein of the Schoenberg Institute told me that Weiss and Schoenberg were favorite chess partners when they were in Los Angeles together.

David Sogg
Principal Bassoon, Omaha Symphony

(The following notes appeared in the program for the 1982 performance by David Sogg:)

Concerto for Bassoon and String Quartet
Adolph Weiss

Born in Baltimore in 1891, Weiss pursued a successful career as bassoonist in numerous orchestras, starting in New York in 1909 and ending with the Los Angeles Philharmonic more than fifty years later. His first compositions were performed in 1923 at the Eastman School American Music Festival, Howard Hanson conducting. Weiss soon became identified with organizations supporting new American music, such as the League of Composers and the Pan American Association of Composers. He also formed his own woodwind quintet which toured Latin America and performed frequently after 1940 in Southern California. He studied composition with Schoenberg in Vienna and Berlin from 1925 to 1927. Subsequently he published articles on Schoenberg in Modern Music magazine and stayed in close touch with Schoenberg when the latter came to the United States in 1933.

The Concerto for Bassoon and String Quartet was one of several works by Weiss, composed after he settled in Los Angeles in 1937. Other compositions of this time include a Sextet for Winds and piano; a Wind Quintet; Passacaglia for Horn and Viola; Trio for Flute, Violin and Piano; "Ode to the West Wind" for Baritone, Viola and Piano; and a Suite for Orchestra, first played in a two-piano version by Lillian Steuber and John Crown at USC. The Concerto was first performed at a concert in Los Angeles on June 2, 1944. It is a twelve-tone composition which features the manipulation of two basic intervals, the minor second and the minor third, producing very consistent thematic material varied mainly through rhythmic, registral and tempo changes. The literary basi's for the piece, according to the composer, is to be found in Coleridge's "Rhyme of the Ancient Mariner. "

(in answer to MY request for more information on the dissertation on Weiss by Sister Bernadette Kopp, Dr. Leonard Stein, Director of the Arnold Schoenberg Institute at the University of Southern California provided the following amplification to the "Weiss Saga":)

Dr. Dr. Klimko, February 11, 1985

Thanks for sending the issue of IDRS with the article on Adolph Weiss. Sister Bernadette Kopp's dissertation is in our library. It is entitled "The Twelve-Tone Techniques of Adolph Weiss" (Northwestern University, 1981). Although Sister Bernadette was in Los Angeles for awhile she is no longer here and I am not sure how she can be contacted. Most of Weiss' compositions are located in the archives of Dr. Hans Moldenhauer in Spokane, Washington (10 11 Comstock Court, Spokane 99203). That is where we got the parts for the Bassoon Concerto. Considering that you are not too far away from Spokane you might make an arrangement to see the material, if you are interested.

I knew Weiss quite well. He was, as you know, also a pupil of Schoenberg - the first American one, I believe, studying with Schoenberg in Berlin, as you will have read. Unfortunately, I do not have time to Put together recollections about him, but if you remind me again in April I will probably have time to do so then. He was a fine bassoonist as such a great organizer of chamber music for winds, and a very in

teresting composer whose music should certainly be heard more. He was involved in many of the concerts of Evenings on the Roof during the 1940s, where his Bassoon Concerto was performed (and some other works as well, I believe) and where his wind quintet performed often including the first local performance of Schoenberg's Wind Quintet, that Don Christlieb makes reference to. I am afraid that Adolph was not too happy with the infrequent performances of his works - that is a familiar story with many composers. But it was rather sad to see his last days in the Los Angeles Philharmonic still hoping that Mehta would perform one of his works. But more later.

Sincerely yours,

Leonard Stein, Director

(The following letter was recently sent to IDRS President Noah Knepper and passed on to me for publication. It it's from retired British bassoonist, Charles Cracknell, and it contains valuable information that can be shared with the readership of the IDRS. Ed.)

Dear Noah,

First let me tell you the pleasure I felt in meeting you at I.D.R.S. Graz and remarking how wonderfully spry and active you are.

I have of course received your letter requesting a donation towards the defraying of the high cost of the splendid Austrian Congress, and albeit that I am a pensioner soon to attain the Biblical "dead" - line of three score and ten this coming September, I will very willingly scrape up forty bucks in so worthy a cause.

I shall apply to my bank this p.m. for the necessary Banker's Draft and dispatch same to E. S. T. Riggins in a few days.

To broach another subject, I hope you will bear with me while I seek your cooperation in drawing the attention of I.D.R.S. members to some compositions for wind written by an old friend and Halle colleague of mine - a year or two ahead of me - and of course retired from active professional playing. He has had a varied performing life - in pre-war dance band, arranging as well as playing, trumpet, and I believe librarian with the Liverpool Phil; and then violinist-to-viola in the HaIle until the year of his retirement - a pretty broad scope of musical experience. From the enclosed list, No. 2 Bn. concerts - Strings has been performed in recent times by Robert Ronnes, Radio Orch. Stavanger, Norway and I understand that Roger Birnstingl in Geneva is interested when his present fulfilled quota of solo performances with Suisse Romande runs out.

No. 8 the wind quintet; I took part in this some years ago in Manchester and remember it as an excellent wind opus. Roger Birnstingl together with his Swiss associates has also performed and expressed satisfaction with this quintet. I will now give you the Atherton address in the hope that 1. D. R. S. will see fit to enquire in more detail from the composer:

Mr. Jack Atherton

31, Parsonage Road

Worsley, Manchester M28 5SJ

Great Britain

I would describe his work as genuinely original, no neo-classicism, not avant-garde, in fact the product of personal inspiration; - of these times, and very acceptable to both musician, and the listening public. Nos. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 and 11 have pfte. reductions which to quote Mr. Atherton, "are only something to help the practice of the soloists, and not a carefully laid out thing from which the worth may be judged. "

Mr. A would wish to set a time limit of two months for retention of material for consideration.

Our years of friendship, and my admiration for Mr. A's achievements as a composer lead me to express the hope that members of I.D.R.S. will evince some real interest in this new source of wind repertoire.

Finally may I add my voice to what I believe to be a considerable weight of opinion in favour of an early Congress in PARIS! - what a venue, a "City of Light" surcharge would scarcely raise a grumble - I specify "early Congress" so that it may take place in my time!

With every good wish and warmest regards,

Yours sincerely,

Charles Cracknell

I . Concerto for Cl. and stgs. . ~ 3 movts. 21 mins.
2. Concerto for Bsn and stgs 3 movts. 22 mins.
3. Concerto for Ob & small orch 3 movts. 20 mins.
(1021 2hn Stgs)
4. Concerto for Hn & small orch 3 movts. 19 mins.
(2222 2 Im Stgs)
5. Suite (Chinese) for Soli 3 movts. 17 mins.
Fl CA Perc(I) & Stgs
6. Variations for Orchestral Wind, etc cont. 15 mins.
(3333/4331/ls hp)
7. Wind Octet (20b 2cl 2hn 2bsn) 3 movts. 10 mins.
8. Wind Quintet I (fl ob cl Im bsn) . . 3 movts. 15 mins.
9. Wind Quintet 2 (fl ob cl Im bsn). . 5 movts. 16 mins.
10 Trio for fl cl bsn 3 movts. 15 mins.
I I Concerto for cl bsn & small orch . 3 movts. 23 mins.

These final letters need no introductions:

Dear Editor of The Double Reed,

Here is a letter written by my bassoon on which I entirely agree. We hope you can publish it in a future issue of The Double Reed.

After long negotiations, my bassoon has accepted, if necessary, to soften the tone regarding the identification of the repairshop, which you might skip... !

Hello I I'm an old 1933 bassoon. Heckel is the name... family name that is. My first name is 7656. Don't get panicky... I'm not about to tell you the story of my life!

I am owned by a 16-year-old, currently studying with Rene Bernard, a member of the Montreal Symphony, and, for the last two years a student member of I.D.R.S. As far as I'm concerned, your Double Reed issues talk too much about bassoonists and not enough about us, the bassoons. My owner, though, seems to think a lot of good about your issues, because each time he receives and reads one he plays with me for some two hours! He says that, for him, Double Reed means Double Read-ing: makes him practice his English (he's French born) while providing him with insight into the world of professional bassoonists, peeps into the lives of great musicians, tricks and cues for instrument maintenance and preservation of reeds etc...

Well! I'm there talking and talking... We bassoons seem to be as talkative as our owners... Let's get to the point! After a few years of grunting, mouthing and fingering exercises of all sorts, my loving and caring owner finally was able to make me sing properly... especially with the triple F passes. The pianos were still painstaking and that was attributed to my losing air from almost every key and joint out of fatigue. So, my beloved owner sent me for a tightening job to a repairman. In addition, he wanted to add a few rollers and a whisper lock to my equipment... and a refreshing oil bath to relieve some arthritis in my old wooden skeleton. Now I'm back after four months and a half...

Harry Dickson, in a very humorous book on the Boston symphony unfortunately now out of press, writing about the hardships of being a member of a symphonic orchestra, mentions a bassoonist who repeatedly talked about retiring and making a flower pot out of his bassoon... which he apparently did when came the time to retire. For God's sake, I just hope I am spared such a destiny! Unconceivable! So here's my proposition: to all of you who are getting really fed up with teaching untalented or unmotivated students, to all of you who are on the verge of a nervous breakdown because of the impossible hours and schedules required to painfully earn your bread playing and repeating with a symphony or a concert ensemble, to all of you who feel an upsurge of your killer instinct toward a mean and malicious conductor, why don't you send your instrument for a maintenance job to - Bassoon Repair Shop in (names deleted. Ed.) For about $2000 Canadian (Imagine, you save almost 25% if you pay in US currency) you can be almost sure not to have your instrument back before a few months. Is that not a nice way to enjoy a beautiful and very well earned holiday... and with a clear conscience as a bonus! Give it a try... you probably owe it to yourself!

Table of Contents