Bassoon Concertos by Tamberg • Tõnu Kõrvits • Erkki-Sven Tüür
Martin Kuuskmann (bassoon), Estonian National Symphony Orchestra/Mihhail Gerts (conductor) OrchidClassicsORC100384 61:30mins
It’s unsurprising that an internationally celebrated soloist should transcend the usual technical bounds of their instrument, and Estonian-American bassoonist Martin Kuuskmann does so emphatically in these three, virtuoso concertos. But he’s most remarkable in locating his instrument’s sonorous, expressive warmth. Dating from around the turn of the century, each work was composed for him by compatriots older and contemporary; and each showcases the bassoon, not for its own sake, but within a striking orchestral soundworld equally revealing of its composer.
Most structurally conventional is 2001’s Concerto for Bassoon and Orchestra by the much-missed Eino Tamberg (1930-2010). Cast in four movements full of quixotic colour and percussive nods to neo-classical Stravinsky, there is succinct drama and a soulfulness most tenderly developed in the third movement ‘Solo’, the concerto’s enigmatic heart.
Here and elsewhere, Mihhail Gerts’s Estonian National Symphony Orchestra rises to the challenge of some subtly complex, yet clear and sympathetic, orchestral writing. In Beyond the Solar Fields (2004), Tõnu Kõrvits (b1969) offers a beguiling – and cohesive – Eastern-inflected impressionism. Alternating bassoon solos with lushly sweeping strings, harp, muted trumpets and chimes, the emergence thence fading of a field-recorded Estonian folk song only serves to heighten the music’s evocative atmosphere.
Against the odds, Erkki-Sven Tüür (b.1959) adapted the solo part of his first Cello Concerto with great success in the 2003 Concerto for Bassoon and Orchestra. The second of its two movements is especially resonant here, as Kuuskmann and fellow musicians skilfully navigate its mysterious textures and pulsing harmonic swerves.