The Score | Western Bassoons

From Stravinsky’s Rite of Spring to Dukas’s The Sorcerer’s Apprentice, the bassoon is blessed with some of symphonic music’s most memorable melodies. But when it comes to solo opportunities in front of the orchestra, bassoonists are not a common sight. Two recent exceptions were with California orchestras that featured their principal bassoonists in concertos written by composers two centuries apart. In January, Nicolasa Kuster (above) performed Peter Schickele’s Bassoon Concerto with the Stockton Symphony Orchestra, led by Music Director Peter Jaffe. Less than a month later, Stephen Paulson (right) served as soloist in the Mozart Bassoon Concerto with the San Francisco Symphony, led by Masaaki Suzuki in his SFS conducting debut. Mozart’s is by far the most frequently performed concerto for bassoon, but players of that instrument would be happy to point out that there are also concertos by Weber, Hertel, Hummel—and multiple concertos by the ever-prolific Vivaldi—just waiting in the wings.