The Bassoon reference article from the English Wikipedia on 24-Jul-2004 (provided by Fixed Reference: snapshots of Wikipedia from wikipedia.org)

Bassoon

The bassoon is the bass member of the woodwind family. Like the oboe it has a double reed and overblows an octave higher. It is considered to have a register tone similar to that of the human voice, particularly in the central and upper register. The bassoon is 8 feet long, and made playable by doubling the tube back on itself and by closing the widely-spaced holes with a complex system of keywork. It disassembles into five main pieces: the bell, extending upward, the bass joint, connecting the bell and the boot, the boot, at the bottom of the instrument and folding over on itself, the wing joint, which extends from boot to bocal, and the bocal, a crooked metal tube which attaches wing joint to reed.

The instrument is played either by a seated player sitting on a strap attached to the bottom of the instrument, or held with a neck strap. The instrument in either case extends diagonally across the player's body, a bit like a saxaphone.

The range of the bassoon begins at B♭₁ (the first one below the bass staff) and extends upward about three and a half octaves; higher notes are possible but difficult to produce and rarely called for. (The opening solo in The Rite of Spring is one notable example of the extreme high range.) Bassoon music is written in bass clef, untransposed, while tenor clef is frequently used for the higher ranges, and in rare cases, treble. Its closest relative, the contrabassoon (or double bassoon), plays an octave lower. The bassoon overblows at the octave, with the aid of a "whisper key" that opens in the high registers.

The double reed used is 53-58 mm in total length, and made of Arundo donax cane. The bassoon (and contra) are alone in the woodwind family in that they are both fingered with Heckel-system keywork, a descendant of the original Baroque fingering system, as opposed to the otherwise ubiquitous Boehm system.

Works featuring the bassoon

• Johann Nepomuk Hummel, Bassoon Concerto in F major, W75
• Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Bassoon Concerto in B♭ major, K191
• Carl Maria von Weber, Andante e Rondo ungarese in C minor, op. 35
• Carl Maria von Weber, Bassoon Concerto in F major, op. 75
• Igor Stravinsky, The Rite of Spring (opens with a famously unorthodox bassoon solo)
• Sergei Prokofiev, Peter and the Wolf (possibly the most-recognized bassoon theme, the part of the grandfather)

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