The Beautiful Bassoon! – Art of Hermann Armin von Kern – by Jesse Read

by Jesse Read | Aug 7, 2020

The Beautiful Bassoon! – Hermann Armin von Kern

by Jesse Read

Hermann Armin von Kern (14 March 1838 – 18 January 1912) was an academic painter, one of the most popular Austrian genre painters of his time who worked at the court of Franz Josef I in Vienna. Being a very good pianist he often made music with his friend, the composer Franz Liszt. He trained in Prague, Vienna and Munich. A very prolific artist, working primarily in oils, Kern specialized in characters, settings, professions, and scenes of local activity.

I don’t know of any other prominent artist who did so many works showing the bassoon.

In all of the paintings, the bassoon is similar, and perhaps he had a good friend who was a bassoonist. The instrument is of the Viennese flared bell type as shown in the examples below. Often the bell was made of metal, not unlike a trumpet or horn bell.

There is a story here, perhaps it is a reed problem…

Is the bassoonist choosing a reed. Or is it snuff?

A refreshment break in the practice session

This is a rather good image showing the accurate keywork on the instrument

Another good image showing accurate keyword (and a fine stein!)

Yes, this one sold for nearly 15,000 Euros, app. 20,000 CDN, probably because it is labeled “The Oboe Player”.

The bassoonist is looking at his portrait, just finished and ready to upload to his website.

He might actually be trimming that one perfect reed for the gig later in the keller.

The clever instrument repairman seems to be busy with many different instruments.

Does the violin repairman also fix bassoons, or does he just play it? Another very good example of accurate depiction of the keywork.

Of course it sounds bad, with no bassoon…seems that the bassoonist is taking a break, as he left his music on the stand and his liquid refreshment on his chair.

Thank you for visiting the Bassoon Art Blog! Stay tuned for art by young bassoonists!

Jesse Read

Name the artist!!

The Beautiful Bassoon! Art of 4 Centuries by Jesse Read

by Jesse Read | Aug 2, 2020

The Beautiful Bassoon!

Art of 4 Centuries

By Jesse Read

The ancestor of the bassoon, the dulcian, shows up all around Europe in many forms. Paintings, graphics, church alter decorations can all show us important information about these instruments, their construction and use.

Art and architecture has always featured musical instrument images

and wonderful versions the bassoon can be found on alters and niches of ancient cathedrals, in murals, paintings, etchings, and later in reference works, teaching materials, song title pages, historical photos, decorative objects and more recently, movies and videos.

Here are a few important, and some less common examples of our instrument from early sources through modern times. Some are from my own collection, some are unidentified, and some are very famous. Known or unknown, they all have interesting stories.

A bass dulcian from 1660 in Görlitz, Germany

A very early image from a book on “trades” or “professions” from Germany in 1698.Titled “Pfeiffenmacher” or “flute-maker” who obviously doesn’t only make recorders, also shown below the workbench. But the most interesting aspect of the image is that he is working on a dulcian like the one in the first picture, the older relative of the bassoon, and there, resting on the bench, is a version of the “modern” bassoon, probably with at most, 4 keys.

Each page of images has a poem attached, moral in character. It reads:

The Flute Maker

He who is generous, let him be silent,

He who takes-let him be noisy

Poverty is like a flute;

Let it use love’s breath,

Let generosity move the fingers.

Its voice of thanksgiving enriches your joy

By piercing through the clouds

And bringing blessing in return.

Is the poet talking about the voice of the bassoon in the last three lines?

Christoph Wiegel, Der Pfeiffenmacher, 1698

Joseph Majer, Nürnberg, 1732

Here is a fingering chart for a bassoon from that time. I love the artist’s conception but I think he didn’t actually get a good look at any bassoon!!

As the bassoon became more sophisticated it also was used more as a solo instrument in the baroque period. Johann Sebastian Bach, Georg Philip Telemann, Antonio Vivaldi and many others wrote solo parts to feature the bassoon. This famous painting shows a bassoon from that time.

Hermann Hals (attributed), The Bassoon Player, ca. 1660

This portrait is of the court bassoonist Felix Reiner, who was among the most illustrious musicians in the south German court of the time. The portrait is from 1760. The inscription gives his birthdate as 1732.

Felix Reiner, bassoonist (1774) by Peter Jakob Horemans (1700 – 1776)

These two bassoonists are playing left-handed! That was possible because the low F key was a “swallowtail” key that could be reached by the little finger on either hand. There was an alternative Ab key until finally it was decided that the left hand would be uppermost, and that key arrangement was dropped. But the beautiful ornamental key remained as a memory!

Musicalisches Theatrum Johann Christoph Weigel app. 1710

Swallowtail key

A beautiful print of a late Baroque bassoon playing a duet with a vertical harpsichord from the music dictionary of J.-B. de La Borde’s ‘Essai sur la musique’ (1780)

upright harpsichord with baroque bassoon

Organ loft in south Germany with a baroque bassoon

The Old and New Ways of Performing a Concert, London, ca.. 1780

It seems that the bassoon was not considered appropriate with the guitar, harp and flute!

Midsummer Night’s Dream by R. Dudley,1890

By contrast, this painting illustrating Shakespeare’s Midsummer Night’s Dream shows the bassoon as the only instrument, emerging from a plant!

David Bles, Sitting Bassoonist, 1860

Does he have a secret??

A study(above) for the painting was hardly known until fairly recently, as it was not often on display at the Palace of the Legion of Honor in San Francisco. It shows the bassoonist in dark colours, but the bright red reed and Degas’ signature on the lower right give it a special quality.

Edgar Degas, The Orchestra at the Opera, 1870

Mr Dihau, in addition to his fame as a bassoonist, wrote popular song for which he engaged the equally famous artist Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, to illustrate covers. This song, Pour Toi!… shows the composer as he receives inspiration from a rather playfully devilish face!

Another Toulouse-Lautrec illustration for songs by Dihau. This time Dihau is shown with a dancing bear, and his bassoon under his arm. There is a story here! Were they going to perform on the streets of Paris? Or going home for dinner?

The famous still unfinished cathedral of La Sagrada Familia in Barcelona, Spain designed by the great artist Anton Gaudi, was started in1882. Over the portico surrounding beautiful stained-glass windows is a nativity scene with musicians, including a striking sculpture of a bassoonist. She is holding the instrument correctly and the bassoon is perfect in its simple design as sculpture.

Paul Klee, Fatales Fagott Solo (Fatal Bassoon Solo), 1918.

Paul Klee, the famous Swiss artist, created a marvelous, curious, whimsical and mysterious drawing he called Fatales Fagott Solo (Fatal Bassoon Solo) in 1918.

The bassoon was often used in church for singing hymns, playing along on the bass line to keep the singers in pitch. Here an illustration from about 1880 shows choir boys rehearsing with the bassoon and an ophecleide, an early tuba, assisting.

Tom Webster, The Village Choir, London,1847

A striking and dynamic abstract oil painting by Ben Jaccov, 1981

James C. Christensen, The Bassoonist, 1996

Artist James C. Christensen says this about his 1996 creation:

“If you look closely, you’ll see that this is not your everyday bassoon and the bassoonist isn’t ordinary either. Note how our hero has adapted: he has eleven fingers . . . just a little something extra I was pleased to include.”

Bassoonist by Wendy Hart Penner, 2009

Charcoal on paper, an life drawing, 18″ x 24″, made by artist Wendy Hart Penner. The subject is Canadian bassoonist Nadina Mackie Jackson during a matinee solo concert for the Vernon Performing Arts Centre in Vernon, British Columbia in 2009. The original has been lost.