Olav Berg ● Crusell ● Weber
Bassoon Concertos
Dag Jensen (bassoon); Kammerakademie Potsdam/Gregor Bühl
CPO 555 576-2 63:29 mins
The 19th-century Finnish composer Bernhard Henrik Crusell was himself a clarinettist, but he wrote the concerto recorded here for his son-in-law Frans Carl Preumayr, who came from a prominent family of bassoon players. It’s somewhat let down by a repetitive polonaise finale, but its single-movement form is quite original, and so, too, is the way the soloist first enters, with an elaborate cadenza. The concerto’s centrepiece consists of variations on a theme by the popular opera composer Boieldieu.
On a higher level is the concerto by Weber, with its fine slow movement and witty finale. Weber’s Andante e Rondo ongarese is his own arrangement of a piece he originally wrote for viola. There’s nothing particularly Hungarian about the good-natured rondo, though its ending, with a three-octave sweep up the bassoon finishing on a top C, is spectacular.
The Norwegian Olav Berg is now in his mid-70s, and when Dag Jensen told him he was planning to record his early bassoon concerto, Berg expressed himself unhappy with the piece and decided instead to write a new one specially for this recording. It’s in a single movement, and largely based on recurring chromatic cells. Berg’s writing for percussion is striking, and so is the concerto’s ending which leaves the
