Bassoon Concerto in B-Flat Major

While later composers relished the comic or gruff aspects of the bassoon’s personality, for Mozart it had quite different associations, invariably appearing in his most mellifluous woodwind solo groups and often taking a cameo role as an indispensable tonal colouring for his loveliest melodies. The 18-year-old’s Bassoon Concerto—his first concerto for any woodwind instrument—was most likely composed for one of the two players in the orchestra of Salzburg’s ruling Prince-Archbishop. While it’s a fairly early work, it displays Mozart’s instinctive sensitivity to woodwind timbre and technique, and stands at the summit of the bassoon’s slender concerto repertoire. The first movement is an affable “Allegro”, exploiting all the bassoon’s lyrical and athletic ability over the full extent of its wide range, casting the soloist as both tenore di grazia and basso profundo. The instrument’s operatic associations are writ large in the tenderly expressive, aria-like central “Andante ma adagio”, before the finale lightens the mood once more with its lilting minuet rhythms.