History
In February 1811, Weber embarked on an international concert tour that was to include such cities as Munich, Prague, Dresden, Berlin, Copenhagen, and St. Petersburg. It was on March 14 that he arrived in Munich, the first city of the tour. There he composed the clarinet Concertino, Op. 26 (J. 109) for Heinrich Bärmann, a well-respected virtuoso clarinetist in the Munich court orchestra who would become a lifelong friend. The Concertino was wildly popular, which caused Maximilian I, the king of Bavaria, immediately to commission from Weber two full clarinet concertos (No. 1 in F minor, Op. 73: J. 114 and No. 2 in E flat major, Op. 74: J. 118). Many musicians of the court orchestra begged Weber to write concertos for them as well, but the only one who convinced him was the bassoonist Georg Friedrich Brandt. A student of the famous soloist Georg Wenzel Ritter (Mozart’s favorite bassoonist), Brandt convinced the King to commission a bassoon concerto from Weber.
The concerto was written from November 14 to 27, 1811. Brandt played the premiere in the Munich Hoftheater on December 28, 1811, but Weber had already left for Switzerland, the next destination on his concert tour. Brandt had the opportunity to perform the concerto three more times, in Vienna (December 27, 1812), Prague (February 19, 1813), and Ludwigslust (March 21, 1817). Weber was able to attend the concert in Prague, and before he sent the concerto to the Berlin publisher Schlesinger in 1822, he made revisions as a result of this hearing. Around 40 years following the 1823 publication, Schlesinger released a heavily edited edition for bassoon and piano which obscured the composition with new articulations, altered notes, added dynamics and misprints. Bassoonist and pedagogue William Waterhouse wrote a scholarly article in 1986 comparing all editions and detailing the changes Weber made in his 1822 revision, and then Waterhouse prepared and edited the Urtext edition in 1990, bringing back to light all of the composer’s original intentions.
According to John Warrack, the title of the first printed copy read “Primo Concerto,” but no second concerto followed, unless one counts the Andante e Rondo Ungarese, which was originally written for viola.
Read more about this topic: Bassoon Concerto (Weber)
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