Historical Bassoons
Directed by Peter Whelan
Royal Academy of Music
25 June 2025
I booked this concert with glee. Bassoons make me beam. I just adore that mellow creaminess and the instrument’s range which means that in its bottom register it can sound like a wistful cello and at the other end like a saxophone. Yet, there’s something about the bassoon’s bounciness which nearly always sounds good humoured. Moreover, as a string player, I have no understanding of the techniques required to achieve those effects. I just admire them.
It’s also a pleasure to note that the RAM can field nine promising bassoonists. I read recently that conservatoires are now finding great difficulty in recruiting bassoon players because, children are not taking the instrument up. So this was rather an encouraging ensemble.
Led by Peter Whelan, bassoonist with parallel careers as a conductor and keyboard player, this concert featured five works from seventeenth century Germany, Italy and France. Whelan introduced each with humour and it was evident that, Professor of Historical Bassoon at RAM, he has an inspirational rapport with these smiling young players.
The opener was part of a Telemann cantata which Whelan quipped was probably a world premiere because it was hidden away when he found it. It featured the whole group and I was immediately struck by the clarity of the acoustic in the David Josefowitz Recital Hall, a room at RAM I haven’t been in before. I was also impressed by the musicality of Fergus Butt who played a declamatory bass line in this work. His rhythmic expressiveness and tone are outstanding. And he visibly lives the music he’s playing. Definitely one to watch.
This view was confirmed when he then gave us a four movement Vivaldi concerto for recorder (Gabriel Alves Candido da Silva – good) and bassoon with Whelan playing harpsichord continuo. It’s a piece full of virtuosic colour and I liked the way these two players delivered the plaintive recorder melody over pretty stunning bassoon semiquavers in the third movement followed by lovely bassoon work and recorder “knitting” in the last. It’s surprising how well this arguably unlikely combination of instruments works.
Sadly, the arrangement of Quoniam Tu Solus from JS Bach’s B Minor Mass which came next was the least successful item in the concert. It featured all five bassoons and the best that can be said is that it was a brave effort. It lacked cohesion and wasn’t always in tune.
Moving quickly on we then got part of a suite by Joseph de Boismortier (1689-1755) who was, apparently, a prolific composer of bassoon music. This work gave each of the five players time in the spotlight. It was cheerful, tuneful and competently delivered.
The 50 minute concert ended with Michael Corrette’s Concerto for Four Bassoons. Again it was Fergus Butt who drew the eye and ear as the parts wove round each other in the first movement. Working seamlessly with the other three, he then produced all the soulfulness the instrument is capable of in the short middle movement. His quasi-cadenza in the third movement was quite something too.
Whelan told the audience that this was the first historical bassoon concert presented by RAM in a very long time – and perhaps ever. I think it’s a lovely idea and smiled all the way home. Please do it again soon.
