Dag Jensen (bassoon); Kammerakademie Potsdam/Gregor Bühl
CPO 555 576-2 63:29 mins
The 19th-century Finnish composer Bernhard Henrik Crusell was himself a clarinettist, but he wrote the concerto recorded here for his son-in-law Frans Carl Preumayr, who came from a prominent family of bassoon players. It’s somewhat let down by a repetitive polonaise finale, but its single-movement form is quite original, and so, too, is the way the soloist first enters, with an elaborate cadenza. The concerto’s centrepiece consists of variations on a theme by the popular opera composer Boieldieu.
On a higher level is the concerto by Weber, with its fine slow movement and witty finale. Weber’s Andante e Rondo ongarese is his own arrangement of a piece he originally wrote for viola. There’s nothing particularly Hungarian about the good-natured rondo, though its ending, with a three-octave sweep up the bassoon finishing on a top C, is spectacular.
The Norwegian Olav Berg is now in his mid-70s, and when Dag Jensen told him he was planning to record his early bassoon concerto, Berg expressed himself unhappy with the piece and decided instead to write a new one specially for this recording. It’s in a single movement, and largely based on recurring chromatic cells.
Berg’s writing for percussion is striking, and so is the concerto’s ending which leaves the music fading out with the bassoon left alone with just a piano. Jensen plays brilliantly (the speed at which he rattles off the last variation in the Crusell has to be heard to be believed) and he’s ably supported by the Potsdam Kammerakademie. Perhaps the fortissimo passages in the first movement of the Weber concerto could have done with more passion, but it’s a small point.
