page_title: Bassoon
section_title: Later and modern ensembles
hierarchical_section_title: Bassoon / Use in ensembles / Later and modern ensembles
context_page_description: The bassoon is a woodwind instrument in the double reed family that plays music written in the bass and tenor clefs, and occasionally the treble. Appearing in its modern form in the 19th century, the bassoon figures prominently in orchestral, concert band, and chamber music literature. It is known for its distinctive tone colour, wide range, variety of character, and agility. The modern bassoon exists in two forms; Buffet and Heckel systems. One who plays a bassoon of either system is called a bassoonist.
context_section_description: The formation of the modern wind section in the late Classical, particularly the dominance of smaller clarinets instead of basset horn, created a preponderance of high-pitched woodwind instruments in the section, with lower auxiliaries such as bass clarinet not yet included. Therefore, scoring for the wind section meant that the bassoons would often serve as both bass and tenor, as in the chorales of Beethoven symphonies. Thus, over the Classical period and into the Romantic, although bassoon retained its function as bass, it also came to be used as a lyrical tenor as well, particularly in solos (somewhat parallel to the treatment of the cello in the strings). The introduction of contrabassoon around this time, along with lower horn writing and expanded lower brass, also alleviated the bassoons (particularly the principal) of the need to serve as a bass. The increasingly sophisticated mechanism of the instrument throughout this time also meant that it could produce higher pitches with greater facility and more expression, which also factored into the increasing frequency of bassoon solos in orchestral writing.
  The modern symphony orchestra, fully established in the Romantic, typically calls for two bassoons, often with a third playing or doubling on the contrabassoon. Some works call for four or more players, typically for greater power and diversity of character. The first player is frequently called upon to perform solo passages. In the Romantic and later styles, the versatility of the bassoon's range of character meant that it would be scored in diverse styles, often particular to a composer or national culture 
  and their notion of how to use it. It has been used for lyrical roles such as Maurice Ravel's Boléro, vocal (and often plaintive or melancholy) ones such as the symphonies of Tchaikovsky, anguished wailing as in Shostakovich's 9th, more comical characters, like the grandfather's theme in Peter and the Wolf, or sinister and dark ones, as in the later movements of Symphonie Fantastique.
  Its agility suits it for passages such as the famous running line (doubled in the violas and cellos) in the overture to The Marriage of Figaro. The bassoons' role in the orchestra has changed little since the Romantic; with frequent bass and tenor roles common, and, with the expanded tessitura of the 20th century, occasionally alto (or countertenor) too. The bassoons often double the celli and double basses, and provide harmonic support along with the French horns.
  A wind ensemble will usually also include two bassoons and sometimes contrabassoon, each with independent parts; other types of concert wind ensembles will often have larger sections, with many players on each of first or second parts; in simpler arrangements there will be only one bassoon part (sometimes played in unison by multiple bassoonists) and no contrabassoon part. The bassoon's role in the concert band is similar to its role in the orchestra, though when scoring is thick it often cannot be heard above the brass instruments also in its range. La Fiesta Mexicana, by H. Owen Reed, features the instrument prominently, as does the transcription of Malcolm Arnold's Four Scottish Dances, which has become a staple of the concert band repertoire.
  The bassoon is part of the standard wind quintet instrumentation, along with the flute, oboe, clarinet, and horn; it is also frequently combined in various ways with other woodwinds. Richard Strauss's "Duet-Concertino" pairs it with the clarinet as concertante instruments, with string orchestra in support. An ensemble known as the "reed quintet" also makes use of the bassoon. A reed quintet is made up of an oboe, clarinet, saxophone, bass clarinet, and bassoon. In small ensembles such as this, bassoon's bass function is in greater demand, although in repertoire from the 20th century (when bassoon's top octave and bass-register horn writing became more frequently employed) bassoon writing may call for it to play with the same agility (and often in the same register) as the smaller woodwinds, as seen in cornerstone works like Su
caption: Edgar Degas, L'Orchestre de L'Opera, (1868)
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