Musicon / Musical education / The double-bassoon (contra bassoon)
-The double-bassoon (contra bassoon)
A swelling martial fanfare may be made absurd by changing it from trumpets to a weak-voiced wood-wind. It is only the string quartet that speaks all the musical languages of passion and emotion.
The double-bassoon is so large an instrument that it has to be bent on itself to bring it under the control of the player. It sounds an octave lower than the written notes. It is not brought often into the orchestra, but speaks very much to the purpose in Brahms’s beautiful variations on a theme by Haydn, and the glorious finale of Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony.
From: H. Krehbiel’s, How to Listen to Music; excerpts, edited by Musicon