TITLE: Buffalo Philharmonic: Williams Bassoon Concerto
AUTHOR: Herman Trotter
SOURCE: American Record Guide
DATE: May-June 2005
The bassoon is a well known and much loved character actor on the orchestra stage, where its capacity for both wit and pathos is touted in The New Grove. But even though concert works for bassoon and orchestra by Mozart, Weber, and Hummel have achieved an enduring if limited place in the concert repertory, the pickings have been much slimmer through the 20th Century, and the bassoon remains vastly under-appreciated as a solo instrument in our day.
Interest was piqued, therefore, when JoAnn Falletta presented the regional premiere of the 1995 Bassoon Concerto (Five Sacred Trees) by John Williams as the centerpiece of an all-American program with the Buffalo Philharmonic on December 3 and 4, to be recorded and released by Naxos this year. The rest of the program consisted of four Copland works of varying familiarity, and the well-attended December concerts had a flavor of popularity and served as tasteful advance publicity for the Naxos release.
But on serious afterthought, it was the Bassoon Concerto that lingered in the mind as a major discovery. It was commissioned by the New York Philharmonic for its principal bassoonist, Judith LeClair, and was recorded by LeClair and Williams on Sony in 1997, a disc now deleted. It's risky to draw sweeping conclusions on the basis of one performance, but Buffalo's principal bassoonist Glenn Einschlag presented so convincing a view of the work that The New Grove's attribution of "wit and pathos" must now be expanded. To this listener, the performance offered the bassoon as a kind of mystic philosopher.
John Williams was moved to write this concerto by his fascination with the English poet Robert Graves's writings about ancient Celtic prayers to the spirits of trees. The movements of his concerto offer meditations on five trees, some apparently now extinct: Eo Mugna (the great oak), Tortan, Eo Rossa (the yew), Craeb Uisnig (the ash), and Dathi. Williams whimsically but aptly observes that the choice of the solo instrument was obvious, since the bassoon is itself a tree (maple).
The work opens with a lyrical, distant, and melancholy bassoon solo that establishes the mystic mood that hovers over the odd-numbered movements. There is a wide variety of texture furnished by the second movement's fiery violin solo and violin-bassoon interplay, and in the fourth movement's thicket of rustling percussive knocks and skittering bassoon lines, all in a dark, agitated minor mood.
The central movement's fascinating monologs and conversations with harp and bassoon were high points in the concerto's frequent invocation of archaic overtones, clearly suggesting its Celtic roots. Williams's orchestration is full of other inventive and ear-catching devices, such as heavily muted trombones, descending weeping intervals in the bassoon, and other pensive solo bassoon lines, which the composer describes as "soliloquies pondering the secrets of the trees". But above all, the work hangs together spiritually, from the opening Oak movement, which can be considered one long question, down to the concluding Dathi movement, with its unanswered, misterioso conclusion.
Falletta kept everything under a tight dynamic rein to allow the bassoon optimum audibility, but made sure the music's linear flow always had a questioning sense of spontaneity. Einschlag quickly established a poised and lyrical fluidity of line and a pungent, mellow, consistent sonority--all of which, given his sure technical command, made a winning case for the lyrical and expressive qualities of the instrument.
John Williams, of course, is a household name for the Oscar-winning scores he wrote for Star Wars, ET, and other films. He has also written many concert works of considerable merit, and this Bassoon Concerto may be the best. Coincidentally, another excellent contemporary bassoon concerto was written in 1977 by a composer also better known for his film scores: Nino Rota.
