iSound

Whenever one scans a chamber music catalog, one notes the abundance of music for piano, violin and cello (duets, trios, quartets), while music for wind instruments is relatively sparse. Especially when it comes to the bassoon, players of this fine instrument find a limited repertoire. Why? Composers tend to write music for potential performance and publication, and here the opportunities are not many. Much of what has been written for the bassoon came about either because the composer had a friend whom he wanted to give a musical gift or else it was by direct commission, a sure-fire way to increase the repertoire. Publishers are reluctant to print music with a small sales potential, and composers prefer their music be performed frequently rather than reside in the dusty archives of some music library for decades until some ambitious graduate student, looking for a subject for a paper, decides to research the music of some obscure composer-bassoonist.
I started piano lessons a...