Yesterday I had a lesson at Northwestern — my last lesson with Professor Kirk until next year! (He takes me on as a temporary student when the breaks for Eastman and Northwestern are different, which is always a good time. And I have a lesson with my old teacher scheduled for tomorrow. So there hasn’t been too much distress.)
Anyway, it was (as usual) fantastic. I would stop there, except that there are a few things I need to share with the wider world.
One: If you are a bassoonist with even a little desire to improve your technique, you should go out and buy Christopher Weait’s Bassoon Scales for Reading & Bassoon Intervals for Reading. You should do this now. (They sell both at Trevco!!) These books are the bassoon music equivalent of a salad from California Pizza Kitchen: fun, tasty, and so healthy you can practically feel yourself glowing. I worked out of both books for an hour today and I can feel them working already.
If for some strange reason you can only buy one of the books, definitely definitely buy Bassoon Intervals for Reading. It’s extremely bizarre — try the consecutive major second page if you don’t believe me — but amazing for technique. If you work at for a while, I’m pretty convinced you should be able to hit any interval on the first try. Maybe the second, if it’s a particularly bad down-slur. But still. Definitely invest in this book!
Two: This might be my inner indie-snob coming to light, but I’ve never been a big fan of the Mozart Bassoon Concerto. I like the Weber a lot (I even made up a little romantic comedy that corresponds to the music of the first movement!), but the Mozart has never won me over. Also, I’ve never played it.
Anyway, I had to have the first two movements prepared for yesterday, and somehow I fell in love. It’s just all so comprehensive; the technique is so organic and the mood moves from light and happy to serious and gorgeous to bombastic and silly seemingly without effort. The Weber does this at its best moments, but Weber definitely took advantage of the orchestra in creating the transitions…whereas Mozart manages them within the actual bassoon part.
Of course, this makes the technique harder because it has to have that sense of flow. And so much of the technique is just a fancy way of moving around to the next gorgeous moment, so it has to be controlled enough to come into the background. On the bright side, it just goes to show Mozart’s supreme confidence in future bassoonists!
All in all, it was definitely a great lesson and I am pumped to keep working on the Mozart.
We’ll see what Mr. Hunt has to say about it in the fall when I’m gearing up for sophomore jury… 
(Also, in unrelated-but-entertaining news: I cannot stop listening to The Decemberists’s “Here I Dreamt I Was An Architect”. Even if all you listen to is classical music, I really think you should venture out on a limb and listen to it. The lyrics against the simplicity of the music and the texture of Colin Meloy’s voice are absolutely fantastic.
And you thought all I wrote about was bassoon!)
