Welcome to my blog! This post is about three significant errors in the 2nd Bassoon part to Béla Bartók's Concerto for Orchestra. My next post will give some fingering suggestions for the technical passages in the 5th movement. Not only is the Concerto for Orchestra one of the most frequently performed orchestral works, but excerpts from it show up on most orchestral bassoon auditions. These errors are therefore doubly consequential, and my hope is that the corrections will become more widely implemented in both performances and auditions. I recently performed the piece with my Oakland University students, and I'll play it again with the Detroit Symphony in a few weeks—both times, with the following corrections: Error 1: The Excerpt in the 2nd Movement The bassoon section has two great features in the 2nd movement. The first time, 1st and 2nd Bassoons play a duet, and the second time, the 3rd Bassoon joins in while the 1st and 2nd play an ornamented version of the duet. It is the addition of the ornaments that creates a wrong note in the 2nd Bassoon part. Here is the first iteration of the duet. In m. 14, notice the D-natural circled in red in the 2nd Bassoon part: Later in the movement, in the ornamented version of the duet, this D-natural becomes a D-sharp, due to the ornament added earlier in the measure (m. 170): Not counting the ornaments, the circled D-sharp is the only note that is different from the first duet. Why would Bartók change this one note? My answer is that he intended for it to be a D-natural both times. This would be a tough error to catch while proofreading, especially considering that Bartók was on his deathbed while writing this piece, because visually the second time looks exactly like the first time. The main evidence for the D-natural is that there are no other note differences between the two duets, other than the addition of the ornaments. Although they appear in the same measure, that circled D-sharp has no musical relationship to the added ornament earlier in the bar; the last two 16th notes are pickups to the next measure and should therefore maintain the pitches from the first duet. I also investigated whether there was any way to justify the D-natural vertically: is there any significance to the interval between the bassoons being a major 6th vs. a minor 6th? I couldn't find anything. The distance between the bassoons seems to freely alternate between major and minor 6ths throughout the duet. However, crucially, there are no other instances of the interval being adjusted in the second iteration of the duet. Error 2: An Unintended 3rd Bassoon Solo The next error concerns the 2nd and 3rd Bassoon parts in the 3rd movement. There is a discrepancy between the score and parts, and I believe the correct version is the score. Check out mm. 84–86, bracketed in red: If you've ever played the 3rd Bassoon part to the Concerto for Orchestra, you might remember this passage as one of your big moments. Alas, I'm here to tell you that the 3rd Bassoon should not be playing in these measures. In the parts, the 1st and 2nd Bassoon are in unison, while the 3rd Bassoon takes the lower melody on its own. As you can see in the score excerpt above, the 1st and 2nd Bassoons each get their own independent melody, and the 3rd Bassoon is not playing. The main evidence for this correction is that scores generally tend to be more accurate than parts. It also seems a little strange that 1st and 2nd Bassoon would be in unison on a solo like this. However, there is an argument to be made for the poor 3rd Bassoon. The other winds play in this passage as well, and while the English horn and 1st Flute both play by themselves, the 1st and 2nd Clarinets play in unison... So maybe the 1st and 2nd Bassoons should be as well. In the rental parts that the DSO is using, this error had already been corrected, so I am not the only one to think that it makes more sense for the 3rd Bassoon to be out of the picture here! Error 3: A Weird Wrong Note in the 5th Movement The final error is a wrong note in a technical passage in the 5th movement that has started regularly appearing on auditions. Here is the 2nd Bassoon part: That circled A on the downbeat of m. 68 is the note in question. The score also shows an A: Here's where it gets weird. The 1st Bassoon part has an F instead of an A: The F is correct; the 1st Bassoon part is right and the 2nd Bassoon part and score are wrong. Take a look at the other woodwind parts: The oboes and clarinets play this whole passage in octaves with the bassoons (note that the clarinet parts are in B-flat). They all play an F here, and there are no other note differences between the oboes, clarinets, and bassoons. Even the flutes, who have a contrasting line, end up on an F on the downbeat of m. 68. In fact, in the entire orchestra, every instrument is playing an F, C, or B-flat—no As anywhere (and they wouldn't sound very good with those B-flats).
Although it's weird that the score and 2nd Bassoon part would have the same incorrect note, there is extremely strong musical evidence that the F is correct. Hopefully you haven't spent too much time practicing this passage with the A (unfortunately I think that the F makes it a little harder!). Let me know what you think in the comments! There are a few more mistakes in the bassoon parts, most of which aren't quite as consequential; I'll let you discover those on your own. Stay tuned for my next post that will offer some fingering suggestions for the technical passages in the 5th movement!
2 Comments
Sherman W.
4/27/2024 03:19:21 pm
Great post! So glad someone is shining light on this after all this time.
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4/27/2024 06:02:28 pm
Thanks for this! Excellent resource, well-reasoned and explained!
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AuthorAll posts are by me, Cornelia (Nellie) Sommer! Archives
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