Pro Contra!

Bassoon and contrabassoon; a kaleidoscopic rainbow of virtuosity, concentrated into a single CD. Perhaps there’s nothing unique here, but nevertheless it is something quite special and unusual. No one could argue that either of these is among the most popular of ‘classical’ instruments. The contra’s popularity rating would probably be as low as its pitch! And this is no great surprise. One consequence of its extremely deep register and particular sound is that composers have been less than lavish with their contributions to its repertoire. In popularity contests, the bassoon would probably do a little better than its big brother, though it would still be unlikely to reach the top 10. All too often, and despite all of Prokofiev’s best intentions, it gets associated with the grumpy grandfather in Peter and the Wolf. This is fairly disrespectful of the bassoon (to say nothing of grandpa).