bassoonist Carl Almenraeder presented his 17-key model of the German bassoon in the early 1800’s, which included modifications of tone hole placement, creating a modern bassoon that played an entire chromatic range for four full octaves, B-flat to B-flat. In 1831, J.A. Heckel opened a factory with Almenraeder, using the modified German bassoon as a guide for an instrument that would start a legacy. After Almenraeder’s death in 1842, Heckel was prompted by composer Richard Wagner to build a bassoon that descended to low A as well as a contrabassoon based on the Heckel model, and Julius Weissenborn would write a complete method book specifically for the Heckel bassoon by 1887. The final major improvements were added to the bassoon by 1905, including lining the wing joint in hard rubber in 1889 and adding the whisper key to the bocal later.