Mozart's Bassoon Concerto, 14
Introduction of Vibrato
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Introduction to Vibrato. By Terry B. Ewell, Bassoon Digital Professor. Overview of performance practices with reference to scholarship produced by Geoffrey Burgess. BDP#225. With Elaine Ross, piano. www.2reed.net.
The original transcript is available here.
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Transcript with Time Codes
00:00Introduction
Music: "Mozart Mashup" with Terry Ewell and Elaine Ross. Welcome, this is Terry Ewell.
00:21Did Mozart's Bassoonists Use Vibrato?
Did bassoonists in Mozart's day use vibrato? Furthermore, do we know when vibrato was routinely applied to bassoon performance?
00:35Modern Bassoon Playing
In my nearly forty years as a professional bassoonist, rarely have I heard bassoon performed by other professionals without vibrato applied to the tone. With few exceptions, vibrato is employed to perform bassoon music from the Baroque period to our present day. In fact, it sounds rather odd to even hear a bassoon performed without vibrato.
01:04A 1974 Recording
One of the vinyl recordings in my collection is noteworthy because the bassoonist performs the Mozart Bassoon Concerto without vibrato. Example: Mozart Bassoon Concerto, Second Movement Wiener Philharmoniker (Vienna Philharmonic), Karl Böhm, Conductor, Dietmar Zeman, Bassoon
01:53Vibrato Then and Now
Here we have a recording pressed in 1974 with the Vienna Philharmonic— one of the finest orchestras in the world—featuring Dietmar Zeman, a distinguished bassoonist. Could a bassoonist today perform the Concerto without vibrato and be well received? I think not. How then can we explain the change from 1974, when performing without vibrato was appropriate in Vienna, to our present time when vibrato is almost always associated with a good bassoon tone?
02:51Geoffrey Burgess
We are fortunate that questions about vibrato are now easier to answer thanks to the scholarship of Geoffrey Burgess. I highly recommend that you read his article, "Vibrato Awareness," which was published in The Double Reed. Burgess, "Vibrato Awareness" Restricted access to IDRS members
03:22Historic Oboe Recordings
Also, you should hear the recordings on the CD collection titled The Oboe: 1903–1953. Geoffrey Burgess, compiler. The Oboe: 1903–1953. Oboe Classics, CC2012 (2005). In the two CDs, Burgess provides oboe recordings in which you can hear the application of vibrato change over time. Let's now have a short summary of the application of vibrato in wind performance.
04:04Flattement
Writings from the Baroque and Classical periods mention the use of finger vibrato— flattement. Flattement was applied to a long tone by means of moving a finger over an open hole but not fully covering the hole. The ornament was thus closely related to a trill. The finger vibrato was particularly effective for flute or recorder performances, where there are many open tone holes available.
04:53Messa di Voce
Often this vibrato was tied to messa di voce, which is a long, sustained note given the dynamic shaping of crescendo and diminuendo. During music composed in the Baroque and Classical periods, there is no indication that vibrato was given constantly; rather, it was selectively applied.
05:33The Rise of Continuous Vibrato
Burgess notes in his article that "the fashion for vibrato almost certainly began amongst singers in the late nineteenth century and was later copied by instrumentalists." The addition of vibrato is best documented with violin and flute players. At the start of the twentieth century, there are accounts of the application of constant vibrato, often referred to as chanté ("singing"), by French musicians.
06:17Taffanel and Moÿse
Burgess writes about two prominent French flutists: "According to Taffanel's pupil Marcel Moÿse, vibrato was first used around 1905, but that it was a hotly debated topic."
06:43Vibrato After the 1920s
By the late 1920s, however, many French performers were using vibrato on oboe and flute. Around that time, oboist Léon Goossens performed with a consistent vibrato for English audiences.
07:00German Resistance to Vibrato
The adoption of vibrato in Germanic countries, however, met with resistance even until after World War II. Conservative trends in Vienna may best explain Dietmar Zeman's resistance to vibrato in the performance we heard earlier in this video. Although a performance of bassoon without vibrato is very strange to our twenty-first century ears, Zeman's rendition of the Mozart Bassoon Concerto in this aspect is closer to the practice during Mozart's time than performances of the work with vibrato.
07:49A Century of Vibrato
So, you now understand that wind performers have been applying consistent vibrato for only about a century, and vibrato did not become widespread until after World War II.
08:13Next Videos
In the next video, I will discuss how vibrato is produced. Then, in the video following that, we will consider the application of vibrato to Mozart's Bassoon Concerto.
08:30Closing Performance
Music: "Mozart Mashup" with Terry Ewell and Elaine Ross.
Resources
References
- Restricted access to IDRS membershere
Credits
- author Terry B. Ewell
- piano Elaine Ross
- Artwork and Graphics by Terry B. Ewell
- Copyright 2015-22 by Terry B. Ewell.
- Copyright (c) 2018 by Terry B. Ewell. All rights reserved.