Music: The Low Bassoon

Eighteen indispensable men got ready last week for another winter’s work. They were the contrabassoonists of the eighteen big U.S. symphony orchestras. Without them, the U.S. symphonic season could not get off to a start. Though a contra-bassoonist without a symphony orchestra may be the lowest down of all musical phenomena, a symphony orchestra with out a contrabassoonist is not low enough.

Few concertgoers would know a contrabassoon if they saw one. But they might recognize a bassoon. Known in German as the Fagott, because of its resemblance to a slim bundle of sticks, the bassoon is the standard bass instrument of the “double reed” or oboe family. It has been known, in facetious circles, as an “ill woodwind that nobody blows good.” The contrabassoon is a giant bassoon built to sound an octave lower than the standard bassoon.

It is to the bassoon what a double bass (bass viol) is to the cello. In its long evolution since Handel wrote for it, it has changed from a vague resemblance to a child’s coffin to a strong resemblance to an overcomplicated vacuum cleaner. Its 20-odd feet of wooden tubing are capable of emitting the lowest—sounds known to orchestral music—lower than any at the left end of a piano keyboard. To everybody but a contrabassoonist, its Stygian burps sound like abysmal Bronx cheers.

But symphonic composers, from Handel to Richard Strauss, have rated the contrabassoon highly, using it to fill in the substructures of massive harmonies. In compositions like Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony and Paul Dukas’ Sorcerer’s Apprentice, it is even given short, snorting solos. These passages are practiced by contrabassoonists with all the loving devotion that violinists give to the most exquisite concertos.

25-Pounder. The outstanding contrabassoonist in the U.S. is a short, dignified Neapolitan named Roberto Sensale, of the New York Philharmonic-Symphony. Sensale first aspired to the cello. But when he applied for a scholarship at the Royal Conservatory of Naples, the only opening was a course in bassoon playing. In 1922 he joined the Philharmonic as a bassoonist. Fifteen years later, at the death of the Philharmonic’s veteran contrabassoonist, a stately Anglo-German named William Conrad, Sensale moved down an octave to take his place.

When Sensale is not playing the contrabassoon he spends much of his time whittling the cigaret-shaped reeds of his 25-lb. instrument. He is interested in few extra-contrabassoon matters. Says he: “I would like better to be a playing contrabassoonist than a retired bassoonist.”