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JAMES B. KOPP. The Bassoon. New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 2012. xvii + 297pp., Illus. ISBN 978-0-300-11829-2 (hardback). Price £30.00
It is, at last, the bassoon's turn to receive its volume from the Yale Musical Instrument series; in it we are guided through a 'history of the bassoon idea' by Dr James Kopp. The back-story of the bassoon is rather different from that of flute, oboe, recorder or clarinet in that there is no precursor in the ancient world, nor any counterpart from the Arabic world. Of course the conical bore, double reed system is manifested in the oboe and related instruments, but the 'bassoon idea', as Kopp terms it, comprises the extension of the conical bore to provide pitches to a fourth or fifth below the normal seven-fingerhole span, the folding of that extension to run back up alongside the fingerhole section, and long-chimneyed toneholes drilled through thick body walls. The realization of this idea, in the form we know as curtal or dulcian, seems to have taken place in Italy in the early to mid-sixteenth century.
Many readers will know that Yale University Press originally commissioned William Waterhouse to write this book. He was the obvious choice with his authoritative position at the centre of bassoon research - organological, musicological, pedagogical and even acoustical - with his extensive library, including the bequeathed Langwill archive, and his collection of historical bassoons. Waterhouse's prior commitments to writing for the Menuhin Guide series and New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, and his extraordinary schedule of conferences, performances, teaching and adjudicating, delayed progress on this work, and in 2007 he asked Jim Kopp to join him as co-author. However, just as Kopp was travelling to England for their first serious discussion of the project, Waterhouse was sadly taken suddenly ill and died.
Elisabeth Waterhouse was keen that the book should go ahead, so encouraged Kopp to keep the appointment. When we all entered Bill's study together later that winter, although there was much evidence of research, we found the only written material was a detailed table of contents. Kopp was prepared to take on the whole book, so he made regular visits - three or four times a year - to the Waterhouse Music...