Arias with obbligato bassoon:
the bassoon in vocal works, circa 1690-1850.
Jim Stockigt, Melbourne, Australia
(28.12.1938 - 1.12.2012)
This site gives information on about 500 vocal works written between 1688 and 1850 in which bassoon is used as an obbligato instrument, either alone or with other instruments, or as a prominent continuo instrument. Sources, published and unpublished are listed; some rare manuscripts and early publications are available for downloading. Links are given to performances on YouTube and to recordings of less well known works.
Additions, corrections, details of further works and sources are welcome.
Jan Stockigt : janicebs@unimelb.edu.au
Samantha Owens : Samantha.Owens@vuw.ac.nz
Highlights:
- The Tuba Mirum from the Mozart Requiem with solo bassoon, as first published by Breitkopf in 1800.
- A bassoon version, very little modified from the original, of the obbligato part for Mozart’s aria “Non più di fiori” from Clemenza di Tito K 621, which was performed in the early nineteenth century with bassoon rather than the customary basset-horn.
- An aria from Handel’s Messiah in the 1786 Hiller version with obbligato bassoon.
- Arias with virtuoso obbligati by the Bach sons, Naumann, Righini, Kozeluh, Sacchini, Himmel and Paisiello.
- About 40 Telemann arias with obbligato bassoon(s).
- Over 20 Handel arias with obbligato bassoon(s).
- Nineteen arias with obbligato bassoon from nine Steffani operas; 16 scores are on-line here.
- About 40 arias with obbligati for bassoon(s) from the Vienna Habsburg Court, 1705-1740.
- A Vienna collection of 12 arias with obbligato bassoon(s) by Fux, Caldara and their contemporaries.
- YouTube links to performances of many arias with prominent bassoon parts.
- Links to numerous RISM incipits.
- Links to scores or solo parts of about 80 arias.
Amongst this large repertoire are many unpublished arias from the cantatas of Christoph Graupner (1683-1760, Darmstadt), Georg Heinrich Stölzel (1690-1749, Gotha/Sondershausen) and Georg Gebel (1709-1753, Rudolstadt), and from the rich tradition of obbligati for fagotto/fagotti from the Vienna Habsburg court of 1705-1740, by Fux, Ariosti and Caldara and their contemporaries. Numerous libraries have given generous permission to reproduce scores, solo parts or initial pages from their collections (see acknowledgements).
This collection was stimulated by generous encouragement from the late William Waterhouse who made a unique contribution to bassoon literature and scholarship. He was key to many of the collaborations that are acknowledged here.
Bill Waterhouse and the author, examining manuscripts from this repertoire.
Sevenhampton, Gloustershire, September 2007.
Jim Stockigt
Jim Stockigt is a physician-endocrinologist who studied bassoon in Melbourne with Thomas Wightman. He has had professional experience on both modern and baroque bassoon and has been active in orchestral and chamber music in Australasia, California and London. He has participated in numerous Kronach symposia. Medical travel has often been enhanced by side-trips to music libraries.
A preliminary list of this repertoire was published in “The Double Reed”, Journal of the International Double Reed Society, 2008, vol 31/1, pp 86-109.
(Last revised and up-dated November 1, 2012)
The Munich bassoonist, Felix Reiner (1732-1783) From painting by Jakob Horemans, 1774
Postcard, anon, circa 1950