puckrock2000

Mozart concerto for electric bassoon - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_WDtMZKm-14&feature...

What's your reaction?

A: "Sacrilege! Why the urge to tamper with a classical masterpiece? This is a brilliant work by an 18-year-old genius; why can't we appreciate it as it is, without trying to 'modernize' it?"

Or

B: "Well, that was fun; I like hearing different interpretations of classics, and knowing that Mozart was just a teenager when he wrote this, and also knowing of his sometimes offbeat sense of humor, I think he might have gotten a kick out of it himself."

Does the particular instrument you play truly reflect the person you are in some way (its sound, style, or repertoire associated with it)?

A little background: my first instrument was the saxophone, which I began playing in 4th grade. When I joined the high school band as a freshman, the band director said, "We have more than enough saxophones. Puckrock -- you're going to play bassoon." (The band's bassoonist had graduated the previous spring.) It was awkward at first, as the fingerings were completely different, in addition to having to learn bass clef, but I quickly began to love the sound and feel of the instrument. Though I can play many other instruments, I feel that no other instrument truly "fits" me like the bassoon; like a bassoon, I'm tall, thin, red(headed), have a bass voice and a dry sense of humor. In a sense, it's my musical "soul mate", to borrow the cliche. Does anyone else feel that way about their instrument?

I knew that heading would grab your attention, and in this case I mean it literally; that is, compositions where the orchestra members themselves (not a separate chorus) are required to sing or vocalize. I've encountered this on occasion in concert band works (such as W. Francis McBeth's "Of Sailors and Whales", Joseph Schwantner's "...and the mountains rising nowhere", and of course Edwin Franko Goldman's "On the Mall" march), but I've never heard of it in any orchestral works. Have you ever heard of (or played) such a piece?

The obvious example of this would be George Gershwin, but I was trying to think of some other examples, such as:

Leonard Bernstein - if you include "Broadway musicals" in the "Pop" category

Frank Zappa - composed several avant-garde orchestral works, like those on the "Perfect Stranger" and "LSO, Vol. 1 & 2"

Joe Jackson - educated at the Royal Academy of Music, and released 2 albums of instrumental compositions ("Will Power" and "Symphony #1"), thought to call those works "classical" is a stretch.

Anyone else you can come up with?

When I tell people that I play the bassoon, their response (if they're not a musician themselves) frequently is, "Bassoon? What is that?" I then am forced to give a semi-facetious explanation along the lines of "Well, it looks like your bedpost, but there's a bunch of metal keys on the outside, and there's a metal tube sticking out of it which I put a reed on and blow into, and it makes music." This usually generates either a lot of eye-rolling, or the response "Oh, do you mean like an oboe?"

I always feel that if I told people that I played any other instrument (piano, cello, trumpet, whatever), I wouldn't have to describe what it is; they would already know.

To my fellow bassoonists: have you ever had to explain what your instrument is, and do you ever feel like yours is the only orchestral instrument that needs to be explained to the non-musician?