Jsyk, I play bassoon. Haven't played long, but a bassoon sonata's been on my list for a while. So, I thought it'd be gratifying to share my process.
The score: musescore.com/user/45506576/s...
This is my 2nd complete woodwind sonata. The 1st was a flute sonata I wrote after I listened to Poulenc's. I'm not proud of that work, but I a lot learned from them.
Firstly, I found a woodwind sonata style that I like. This was mostly inspired by Poulenc's. He had a knack for woodwinds. Compare his clarinet and violin sonatas: his violin sonata pales in comparison to his woodwind ones. Poulenc, however, didn't write a bassoon sonata but only a Trio for bassoon and oboe. This piece was as an inspiration to me but TBH wasn't that helpful bc the bassoon often plays an accompanying role. There isn't much solo bassoon repertoire. The most famous bassoon sonata is Saint-Saen's. This lack repertoire prompted me to begin this project. My goal's always been to write a concerto, which is a long ways away.
It started with a motif--a falling CAug chord inspired by Scriabin's Poem of Ecstasy. I experiment a lot with both aug. chords and min7b9 chords (and Augb7 chords, which are similar). So, I'll run through the movements and explain what I did and why I did it.
The 1st movement begins with a quote of Tristan Isolde. Not an exact quote, but it's one of several allusions. After this, the aug. chord motif appears. There's actually a F# in the base, which's the first time I contrast this tritone relation. It appears at the end of the movement with a F# in the base of a CMaj7 chord. Later, I make it a C Lydian scale. The aug. motif is sequenced, leading to a section contrasting Cmin9 and EMaj9#13. There's a couple of instances where I use voice leading between distant chord. This section likely works because of the common tone D and the chromatic voice leading. This takes us to a V - 1 progression to CMaj9b7.
The 2nd motif was inspired by the contrabassoon solo in Ravel's left hand piano concerto. It's one of the most iconic contrabassoon solos. This Fmin section leads to the relative major Ab. I spend a lot of time in Ab major before leaving with the tritone relationship between FMaj7 and BMaj7, over a Eb pedal tone. This offers a connection between the AbMaj section and soon CMaj and provides a common tone between FMaj7 and BMaj7 (A and D#/Eb). This does present enharmonic issues, which I run into with the octatonic scale too. I then transition to Gmin9 than C, which imho is somewhat forced. After this there's an atonal section with a B and F tritone and D ostinato. This serves no function whatsoever but is only there because I like it. It's not my favorite moment, and I may omit it.
Lastly, there's a recapitulation. The Fmin sections doesn't take us back to AbMaj. I avoid it with a EbAugb7/F. There's a couple different ways to characterize this chord because augmented chords are "rootless" per se. I'm not sure, functionally, that this is how the chord works. It feels more like a Fmin chord with an unresolved GMaj suspension. Oc, there's a cliche ending.
The second movement is much shorter, dwelling primarily in C minor. Again, we see a lot of EbAugb7 chords and suspensions. There's a piano cadenza built primarily on the octatonic scale, leading to Cmin after the melodic EbMaj section. This octatonic septuplet idea is reused at the opening of the 3rd movement in a different key.
I ended up discarding what I'd been working on for for the 3rd mov because it was mundane. I liked the idea of a low intro because of the Ravel concerto. So, I experimented with the motif from Shostakovich's 8th string quartet on my bassoon. That led me to this intro. Then, I decided to throw in crazy arpeggios and tortuous leaps because why not. 😂 There's a brief section in EbMaj that drops back to CMaj. This is abruptly modulated to a section exploring the tritone relationship between EMaj9b7 and BbMaj9b7. This idea is modulated up a min 3rd both to complete an dim. chord and to return to GMaj, contrasting GMaj9b7 an BbMaj9b7. Strangely, this led my ear to a Esus chord, which led me to AMaj. Not sure why you can go from Bb Major to A Major but I assume that it has to do with a tritone sub since you can do a similar thing with C and Db using a G half diminished chord. Incidentally, I quote my 4th symphony in the AMaj section. No one'll know. 😉 This abruptly modulates to a CMaj 2nd inversion chord. I have no earthly idea why this works. You can just key change between 3rds for some reason, and it usually sounds decent. If somebody knows why this is, I'd love to know. Anyhow, I'm back in C. Except that I'm in Db for the climax! Not for long! I end up in C Lydian then a boring CMaj chord.
Anyhow, that's my first bassoon sonata! I'm very happy with what I made, rn. Let me know what you felt worked and what you felt was iNTeReStiNG!
#justiceforSalieri