Early History

The following information comes from Wikipedia:

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.