Buffett System

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The Buffet system bassoon, which stabilized somewhat earlier than the Heckel, developed in a more conservative manner. While the development of the Heckel bassoon can be characterized as a complete overhaul of the instrument in both acoustics and keywork, the Buffet system focused primarily on incremental improvements to the keywork. This less radical approach deprives the Buffet system bassoon of the improved consistency, and thus ease of operation and increased power, found in the Heckel bassoons, but the Buffet is considered by some to have a more vocal and expressive quality. (Conductor John Foulds in 1934 lamented the dominance of the Heckel-style bassoon, considering them to be too homogeneous in sound with the horn.)

Compared to the Heckel bassoon, Buffet system bassoons have a narrower bore and differing keywork; the Buffet instruments are known for a reedier sound and greater facility in the upper registers, reaching e''' and f''' with far greater ease and less air pressure. While specifically desirable in some music (French woodwind players traditionally produce a lighter and more reedy tone than is usual elsewhere) the more reedy sound has sometimes drawn criticism for being too distinctive. As with all bassoons the tone varies substantially from instrument to instrument and performer to performer. The Heckel system can sound rather fixed and woody, but good players strive and usually succeed in producing a warm singing tone. The Buffet can sound reedy, but many good players strive and usually succeed in producing a warm, expressive sound which is not in the least reedy.

Though the French system was once widely favored in England, Buffet instruments are no longer made there, and the last prominent English player of the French system retired in the 1980s. However, with its continued use in some regions and its distinctive tone, the Buffet continues to have a place in modern bassoon playing, particularly in France. Buffet-model bassoons are currently made in Paris by Buffet Crampon and Selmer, with various other makers producing replica instruments. Some players, e.g. Gerald Corey in Canada, have learned to play both types and will alternate between them depending on the repertoire being played.

Heckel System

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The design of the modern bassoon owes a great deal to the performer, teacher, and composer Carl Almenräder, who, assisted by the German acoustic researcher Gottfried Weber developed the 17-key bassoon whose range spanned four octaves. Almenräder's improvements to the bassoon began with an 1823 treatise in which he described ways of improving intonation, response, and technical ease of playing by means of augmenting and rearranging the keywork; subsequent articles further developed his ideas. Working at the Schott factory gave him the means to construct and test instruments according to these new designs, the results of which were published in Caecilia, Schott's house journal; Almenräder continued publishing and building instruments until his death in 1843, and Ludwig van Beethoven himself requested one of the newly-made instruments after hearing of the papers. Almenräder left Schott to start his own factory along with partner J.A. Heckel in 1831.

Heckel and two generations of descendants continued to refine the bassoon, and it is their instrument that has become the standard for other instrument makers to follow. Because of their superior singing tone quality (an improvement upon one of the main drawbacks of the Almenräder instruments), the Heckel instruments competed for prominence with the reformed Wiener system, a Boehm-style bassoon, and a completely-keyed instrument devised by C. J. Sax, father of Adolphe Sax. One latecomer attempt, from 1893, with a logical reformed fingering system was implemented by F.W. Kruspe, but failed to catch on. Other attempts at improving the instrument included a 24-keyed model and a single-reeded mouthpiece, but both were found to have adverse effects on the bassoon's distinctive tone and were abandoned.

Coming into the 20th century the Heckel-style German model of bassoon dominated the field; Heckel himself had made over 4000 instruments by the turn of the century, and the English makers' instruments were no longer desirable for the changing pitch requirements of the symphony orchestra, remaining primarily in military band use.

Today the Heckel factory continues producing instruments (after a brief 1940s wartime conversion to ball-bearing manufacture) and Heckel bassoons are considered by many the best, although a range of different manufacturers exist, all with different modifications to their bassoons. Companies that manufacture bassoons are (among others): Heckel, Yamaha, Fox Products, Schreiber, Püchner, Signet, Moosmann, Kohlert, B.H. Bell. and Guntram Wolf. There are also several smaller bassoon manufacturers that make special instruments to fit special needs. In the 1960s the Englishman Giles Brindley began preliminary development of what he called the "logical" bassoon, which aimed to improve intonation and evenness of tone through use of electrically activated key combinations that were too complex for the human hand to manage.

Early History

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The bassoon was developed from its precursor, most often referred to as the dulcian, a wooden instrument all in one piece. Used and developed greatly in the 16th century to add a stronger bass to the wind band then consisting largely of shawms and recorders, the dulcian's origins are unknown. Scattered evidence exists for its creation at various places and times, and few early examples survive. There were eventually eight members of the dulcian family of varying size, from soprano down to bass ranges. The early dulcian had many similarities to the modern bassoon: though generally constructed of only a single piece of wood rather than sections, it too consisted of a conical bore that doubled back on itself at the bottom, with a curved metal crook leading from the instrument body to the reed. It was, like the modern instrument, frequently constructed of maple, with thick walls to allow finger-holes to be drilled obliquely, with its bell flared slightly at the end. However, there were only eight finger-holes and two keys. The dulcian later evolved into the curtal, which featured separate joints like a modern bassoon, and gained an extra key.

Some twentieth century music scholars believed this instrument resembling a bundle of sticks, hence it was given the name "fagotto", in 16th century Italy. However, this etymology is incorrect: The term "fagotto" was in use for the bassoon before the word was used for "bundle of sticks"; also, when the term first appeared, the resemblance did not exist, as the instrument at that time was carved out of one continuous block of wood (Jansen 1978). The origin of this name is therefore a mystery. (A dance also named "fagot" dates to a century earlier.) The instrument was constructed folded back on itself, as it is to this day (giving it the name in some regions "curtal", as it was shortened significantly). The English name of "bassoon" comes from a more general term referring to the bass register of any instrument, but after Henry Purcell's call for a "bassoon" in Dioclesian (1690) referring to the wooden double reed, the word began to be used to refer to this instrument in particular.

The evolution of the early dulcian into the modern bassoon is also without precise record; the dulcian continued to be used into the 18th century (and in Spain, into the early 20th). A German painting, "Der Fagottspieler", in the Suermondt Museum, which scholars date to the end of the 17th century, depicts the bassoon much as it appears in its current form, and a three-keyed bassoon has been dated to 1699. It was the Dutch maker Coenraad Rijkel whose addition of the G key for the little finger of the right hand, just after the turn of the 18th century, fixed the hand position to the current standard; previously, the instrument could be played with either hand on top. The early bassoon flourished in the Netherlands in the late 17th and early 18th century, with over half a dozen prominent woodwind makers developing the instrument. Today, only thirty-three bassoons from that era survive.