The History and Evolution of the Bassoon
The ancient history of the bassoon is fairly murky, but ancestors of the bassoon and its kid brother the oboe have been around since the middle ages. Double-reed woodwind instruments called “shawms” were in use in Europe by at least the 12th century, having probably arrived there from the Middle East, where similar instruments had been developed a few centuries earlier.
By the Renaissance, shawms were squawking all over Europe, and by the 16th century they were making shawms that played in a variety of ranges, from sopranino to double bass. One branch of the shawm family that became common, especially in Brittany, was the bombarde. The “bombarde” label was mainly applied to lower-ranged shawms, while higher-pitched shawms were usually just called shawms.
As Renaissance music grew more complex, musicians saw the need for a woodwind instrument that could play really low and reasonably loud. The bombardes that were available presented a conundrum: in order to play as low as composers wanted, the instruments had to be ridiculously long, as much as three meters of tube.
The solution instrument makers came up with in the second half of the 16th century was to fold it up in the manner of brass instruments. The bore did a u-turn at the bottom, effectively cutting the length of the instrument in half and making it more manageable to play and transport. The bending also made the instrument’s tone considerably mellower, so it was dubbed the “dulcian,” from the Latin for “sweet sounding.” The dulcian is the direct forerunner to the modern bassoon, the homo erectus to the bassoon’s homo sapiens. The dulcian went by other names as well, including the curtal in England and the Fagott in German-speaking places.
Dulcians evolved into bassoons in the 17th century, when the modern four-joint construction was developed, probably in France. Bassoons had a range that could stand up against the lowest members of the string family, so composers who wanted bass notes out of a woodwind instrument now had something to work with.
Baroque composers found a variety of roles for the bassoon. Bach liked to assign them obligato parts, while Vivaldi wrote more than 30 bassoon concertos. By the dawn of the classical era, the bassoon was firmly entrenched as a regular member of orchestras and chamber ensembles.