Curiosità

- Some notes about bassoon concert
- G.B Polledro
- Three violinists and a bassoon


Some notes about bassoon concert

As further documentation is missing, the autograph of the Bassoon Concerto leaves us free to make deductions.

The firm, quick, clear and extremely accurate writing makes us think about a chronological setting around the first thirty years of 1800. Performed or not (but probably written on purpose for an important bassoonist of his times) the Concerto was never abandoned completely by the composer.

On the handwritten score there is in fact a second groups of graphic signs, probably added after a long time. The markings due to the great tremor make ass think of Polledro's illness ("a tremor in the hands and arms caused by nerve indisposition rather than old age" says a document preparatory of his retirement).

Polledro, during the first thirty years of 1800, was more frequently substituted by Giuseppe Ghebart first at the Teatro Regio and then also at the Royal Chapel until the date of his retirement in 1845.

The new indications make us think of a revision made in his late years (perhaps for a Piedmontese solo artist), that is the reason of the instrumental and orchestral indications laboriously written on paper due to the shortage of musical space on the score.

The extraordinary precision of the added notes makes us think of a practical purpose and at the same time of an artistical maturity where the Maestro embellishes reducing or emphasizing some passages of the original score.

Almost in all the three parts of the Concerto, the new suggestions introduce a dialogue between oboe, flutes and leading bassoon with small but relevant interventions that interrupt the continuous twirling of the solo part; in the first movement, on the contrary, interventions with full orchestra are introduced and indicated with a lapidary "Orchestra".

The forms adapted are the classic ones, but we can witness the preference for those baroque spaces in which a small number of instruments (solo) are opposed to the whole lot (All lot) as we can see in the Violin Concert op. 6.

Reconsidering the Bassoon Concerto the delicate phrasing is undoubtedly evident as shown in the lovable significant theme of the first movement or in the well exploited agility gift among the repetitive difficulties in the form of Rondeau that characterizes the third movement.

In conclusion, the second part in its bare essentiality appears to be a break of kind and thoughtful finishing; its shortness is nor surprising owning to the major importance of the Allegro over the moderate parts where the exaltation of the virtuoso solo abilities is fundamental but obviously not applicable to the slower parts.

 

Claudio Mantovani