Curiosità
- Some notes about bassoon concert- G.B Polledro
- Three violinists and a bassoon
Three violinists and a bassoon
What have Giovanni Battista Viotti, Giovanni Battista Polledro and Nicolò Paganini got in common?
First of all they are three great virtuoso violinists, extraordinary interpreters cheered all over Europe and authors of fundamental compositions in their instrumental repertoire. But an almost unknown and curious aspect binds these three exponents of the Italian violinist art together.
If the violin, solo or in chamber concert groups or with orchestra, is the only protagonist of their composers career.
In each of their production we can also note a work dedicated to the bassoon, The Concerto for bassoon and Orchestra by Polledro and The Three duets for Violin and bassoon by Paganini.
Anyone familiar with musical instruments more similar to the violin one would think of the flute for the similarities of register and the agile and virtuoso potentials.
On the contrary the three violinists decided to compose for an instrument with darker sounds and definitely less flexible.
Only in the case of Paganini we know the reason of the composition: about the year 1800, at the age of seventeen, during a stay in Livorno, the violinist composed:
"Bassoon music for a Swedish amateur who was complaining that he could not find difficult music..."
The date and aim of the other two works are quite uncertain.
In the past years Clandio Gonella had the opportunity to execute in "prima moderna" these unusual but valuable compositions dedicated to his instrument: the Andante and Allegretto for Bassoon and Orchestra by Viotti on the 26th October 2003 in St.
Christopher's Church in Vercelli together with the Camerata Ducale Orchestra; in the Concerto for Bassoon and Orchestra by Polledro on the 21st November 2003 at the Conservatory "G.Verdi" of Turin; the three duets for violin bassoon, MS130 by Paganini with Salvatore Accardo.
Accardo and Gonella have also carried out a recording for Dynamic (CDS 184).
