Graupner: Bassoon Cantatas

Spirited Bassoon Cantatas. During the eighteenth century the knowledge that the bassoon could very well rise up to the virtuosic spheres was reserved for only rather small circles of hearers. After all, the employment of this instrument depended directly on the particular musician’s capabilities in playing technique. In April 1736 a new bassoon star in the person of Johann Christian Klotsch came from Zerbst to Darmstadt. Christoph Graupner must have been extremely delighted to work with this talented musician; Klotsch had only recently been under contract in Darmstadt when he was given multiple opportunities to demonstrate his bassoonist’s skill in the Sunday cantatas. Since Graupner loved to experiment with innovative tone colors, he increasingly placed the bassoon in the spotlight in his cantatas. This development reached its height in 1741 with bassoon parts of concerto character in sixteen different cantatas. Sergio Azzolini is currently a star of today’s Baroque scene. When he plays his bassoon, the music is brought to life, and on this album with vocal soloists and the Kirchheim BachConsort he has “revived” (in the truest sense of the term) church cantatas with obbligato bassoon by Graupner. Sergio Azzolini comments: “The Baroque bassoon is fragile. And this fits this music because the music too is fragile. The Baroque bassoon is one part, and the player has to do the rest, that is, our body. For this reason we are also very close to the singer. And I believe that Graupner understood that, and it was precisely this that he celebrated.”