Bassoon Steppes
Alexander SCRIABIN (1871-1915)
Etude in B flat minor Op.8 No.11 (arr. Piatigorsky) [3:45]
Dmitri SHOSTAKOVICH (1906-1975)
Preludes Op.34 Nos 6, 13-16 & 24 (arr. Bertrand Hainault) [11:08]
Nikolai RIMSKY-KORSAKOV (1844-1908)
Captivated by the Rose Op.2 No.2 (arr. Lola Descours and Paloma Kouider) [3:03]
Peter Ilyich TCHAIKOVSKY (1840-1893)
Nocturne Op.19 No.4 (arr. Ivan Kostlan) [4:19]
Lera AUERBACH (b.1973)
Air ‘I Walk Unseen’ (arr. Lola Descours and Paloma Kouider) [7:10]
Mikhail GLINKA (1804-1857)
Elegy ‘Don’t Tempt Me’ (arr. Lola Descours and Paloma Kouider) [4:19]
Sergei RACHMANINOV (1873-1943)
Cello Sonata Op.19 (arr. Lola Descours and Paloma Kouider) [32:42]
Lola Descours (bassoon), Paloma Kouider (piano)
rec. 22-24 August 2021, Venue Salle Philharmonique de Liége, Belgium
Reviewed as a digital download from a press preview
ORCHID CLASSICS ORC100190 [62:47]
For a work that seems so inimitably suited to the cello, Rachmaninov’s sonata for the instrument seems to be enjoying a second life arranged for all sorts of alternatives. This weekend alone I have enjoyed Janine Jansen playing it on one of the dozen violins selected for her Stradivari project. And now we have the bassoon. This is not as unlikely an idea as it might seem and Lola Descours is on a mission to get us to see her instrument in a different light. Leaving aside that calling an album ‘Bassoon Steppes’ isn’t likely to help erase the associations between instrument and inadvertent humour, focusing on Russian material is a great way to persuade listeners that there is more to the bassoon than the instrumental equivalent of a comic turn. No country’s composers have done more to show that the bassoon is a vehicle for mining the moodier aspects of the human condition. Think of the opening of Tchaikovsky 5 and we are very far away from what Tovey refers to as ‘the great bassoon joke.’ Likewise, the opening of The Rite of Spring is unthinkable without that particular tone colour.
Moody Russian-ness seldom comes moodier than Rachmaninov and, if it takes a few moments to adjust to the absence of the timbre of a cello, the melancholy song of the bassoon in the slow introduction more than compensates. Descours sounds rather French in colour which reminded me of how intertwined the music of Russia and France were at this time. There is a real ache to her sound which humanises the many moments in this work where the soloist is required to sing. I was put in mind of a Russian bass baritone much more often than Prokofiev’s grandfather in Peter and the Wolf. There is no way that Descours can summon the great welter of sound a cellist can at the climaxes which means that direct comparisons with the original are unhelpful. What it does do is advance Descours’ agenda of helping the listener to reimagine the possibilities of the bassoon. There are a few moments in which passage work designed for the stringed instrument sound awkward on the woodwind one but mostly this arrangement works. It has the curious effect of making the piece sound more orchestral, linking it to the piano concertos and the symphonies.
Descours sets her stall out from the first track, a Scriabin arrangement, and a composer who is resolutely serious. The piece sounded to my ears transformed into a wintry dawn over the Moskva river.
There is some backtracking to the comic bassoon with the enjoyably effective co-opting of a clutch of Shostakovich preludes though here the humour is tougher edged and sardonic.
There is something about the characteristic uncoiling nature of Russian melody, built out of cells that build up on top of themselves, that suits the bassoon extremely well and the rest of the programme gives us a selection adroitly chosen to show this association off to best advantage. There is a real nobility to her playing of these great tunes by Rimsky Korsakov and Tchaikovsky which is another challenge to perceptions of her instrument. I’m not sure what I expected from an album of bassoon music but this amount of melody probably wasn’t on my list.
She includes one piece of contemporary music – I guess an entire album of contemporary music for the bassoon would constitute chancing one’s luck – from the playfully enigmatic pen of Lera Auerbach. Auerbach has spoken of the role of dreams in inspiring her music and it can often seem like what we are listening to is the Russian tradition filtered through the strangeness of the dream state. At its best it can be touching and unsettling, often simultaneously. I Walk Unseen, specially written for Descours, takes the music of the rest of the programme as a starting point for its peregrinations - and wander off the path it does. Listen to the almost supernaturally spooky sounds about two minutes in and you realise that what seemed like a piece in the style of earlier music might have in fact been a kind of musical ghost. This sense of unease persists so evocatively that we are almost relieved to get to the safety of the Glinka Elegy which follows it.
Throughout, Descours is sympathetically partnered by the French pianist, Paloma Kouider, who never swamps the bassoonist, even in the bigger moments in the Rachmaninov. The sound is what I have come to expect from Orchid Classics. In other words, superb.
I very much hope that this album doesn’t get filed away as a novelty act or worse – that title! – raises sniggers. There is real imagination at work here in terms of programming, arrangement and, above all, immensely persuasive playing. I suspect anyone, apart from bassoon players and teachers, will come away with their prejudices turned on their head but this isn’t a didactic exercise – the way Descours shapes the big tune at the end of the finale of the Rachmaninov makes her point in the best way possible and that is musically.
David McDade
