Honey-coloured cow. Moosic for bassoon
Laurence Perkins (bassoon)
Strings of the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra/William Goodchild
Carducci Quartet
Catriona McDermid, Amy Thompson, Matthew Kitteringham (bassoons), Eira Lynn Jones (harp), John Flinders (piano)
rec. 2019-22, Birmingham; Wyastone Estate, Monmouth, UK.
Hyperion CDA68441 [63]

This will be a box of delights for those who love the bassoon and, indeed, for many who wouldn’t normally think of themselves as enthusiasts for the instrument – prepare to have your minds changed!

Amongst those who already value the bassoon, Laurence Perkins’ standing is very high – both for the quality and insight of his playing and for his inventive programming, whether in recital or recording. This new disc can only enhance his reputation still further. Keen, as ever, to demonstrate his instrument’s moods and adaptability, Perkins’ bassoon is presented in many different contexts: as an unaccompanied soloist (Robin Walker’s Twilight);accompanied by the piano (for example in Ruth Gipps’ Honey coloured cow); or by the harp (Sauget’s Barcarolle); in a bassoon quartet (Michael Norris’s ‘Tango, No.2’); with a string quartet (Gordon Jacobs’ Suite for bassoon and string quartet); or, indeed, with a full string orchestra (Villa-Lobos’ Ciranda das sete notas).

There isn’t a single piece on this disc which fails to offer a degree of pleasurable interest, as Perkins displays the many moods and manners of his instrument. In this review, I will, of necessity, select a few works which I find especially rewarding. One such is Michael Norris’ ‘Tango No. 2’, in a performance which is played with fine rhythmic sense, articulating a lively dance with a satisfying lilt. Michael Head was held in high regard as a singer and composer of songs, as well as being a well-regarded pianist and organist; the sense of song is very evident in his almost impressionistic piece Clouds, which makes for thoroughly pleasant listening. Henri Sauget’s Barcarolle is also very atmospheric, played with sensitive insight by Perkins, well-supported by John Flinders and evoking a Venetian evening in which a gondolier is singing his last song of the day.

Gordon Jacobs’ ‘Suite for bassoon and string quartet’ is in four movements – (‘Prelude’, ‘Caprice’, ‘Elegy’ and ‘Rondo’): of these ‘Elegy’ is perhaps the loveliest, where the writing for the strings complements the sound of the bassoon beautifully. One of the other especially intriguing pieces here is Thomas Simaku’s ‘Andante and Scherzo’, in which a soulful Andante is followed by a vivacious and playful Scherzo. In both movements there are some unconventional, but thoroughly attractive moments, which Laurence Perkins suggests in his booklet notes, may be remembered from the folk music of Albania, the country in which Simaku was born. He is currently Professor of Composition at the University of York.

The one work in the programme for unaccompanied bassoon is Robin Walker’s Twilight, a piece commissioned by Laurence Perkins. It is a lovely and sophisticated musical response to the Lake District landscape experienced at dusk. Perkins writes “In concert performances I precede the work with four lines from William Wordsworth’s poem ‘An evening walk’:

The song of mountain stream unheard by day,
Now hardly heard, beguiles my homeward way.
All air is, as the sleeping water, still,
List’ning th’ aereal music of the hill.

Walker’s music – and this performance of it by Laurence Perkins – captures perfectly the experience of being able only to hear something which one can no longer see. This is a memorable short work (less than seven minutes long in this performance) which despite its brevity evokes very powerfully the sense of an individual in a vast landscape. For me this is the loveliest piece (and performance) on the disc.

The title of the disc, however, is borrowed from the piece by Ruth Gipps, one of the most important women in British music through most of the twentieth century. Astonishingly, she had her first composition published when she a mere eight years old! Beginning her studies at the Royal College of Music in 1937, her teachers included Ralph Vaughan Williams and Gordon Jacob. She was accomplished both as oboist and pianist and composed a wide range of music, including five symphonies, concertos for piano, violin, clarinet and oboe, plus a fair body of chamber music. She did not embrace ‘modernist’ methods, and her music largely remained grounded in the idioms of her teachers. Laurence Perkins explains “I chose the name of the short, delightful piece by Ruth Gipps as the title for this album partly because the music that Gipps wrote illustrates the much-discussed aspect of humour and the bassoon in a tasteful and perceptive manner. Yes, it has a ‘moo’ in it, just as Alan Ridout’s Pigs contains a few grunts, but these are real pieces where the humour is simply an ingredient in music which is not primarily about creating cheap laughs at the expense of the instrument”. Ruth Gipps clearly found ‘her’ cow beautiful – as evidenced by the title she gave the piece, but didn’t idealise the cow and ignore its natural behaviour. Her piece, which admires, and yet sees the limitations of the cow, reminds me somewhat of Robert Frost’s poem ‘The Cow in Apple Time’:

Something inspires the only cow of late
To make no more of a wall than an open gate,
And think no more of wall-builders than fools.
Her face is flecked with pomace and she drools
A cider syrup. Having tasted fruit,
She scorns a pasture withering to the root.
She runs from tree to tree where lie and sweeten
The windfalls spiked with stubble and worm-eaten.
She leaves them bitten when she has to fly.
She bellows on a knoll against the sky.
Her udder shrivels and the milk goes dry.

The work which, very aptly, closes Perkins’ programme, is a characteristically vibrant composition by Heitor Villa-Lobos, Ciranda des sete notas – a ‘Ciranda’ being a circle dance most often performed in Brazil, although it may have originated in Portugal. This is the one work on the disc, in which the bassoonist is joined by a string orchestra, consisting of the strings of the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra, conducted by William Goodchild. This Ciranda is based on a set of seven notes, which are heard at the beginning of the work, as “an ascending scale in both strings and bassoon” (Perkins). This motif is soon developed and there follows a short, faster section, before the music slows into an attractive passage marked andante. In this passage the soloist’s line has some wide intervals, heard above some relatively quiet music from the strings, with brief solos for viola and cello. This, in turn, leads to some quite ‘dark’ music for the bassoon, played over an ostinato line in the double bass. We emerge from this darkness into music for all the strings, with brief interjections by the bassoon. This is, in effect, a short concerto for bassoon and string orchestra; it is possible that the sense of dialogue had a personal significance for the composer, since the score bears a dedication to ‘Mindinha’, a name Villa-Lobos often used for his wife Arminda Neves d’Almeida. The two married in 1936, while this piece was written in 1933.

‘Personal’ or not, Circanda is a substantial work, by far the longest on the disc which, in its expressivity and its demonstration that the bassoon can both dance and express a wealth of emotions, is the perfect climax to a splendid disc.

1. I have heard two very interesting previous Hyperion discs programmed and played by Laurence Perkins, Voyage of a Sea-God (CDA687371-2) and The Playful Pachiderm (review), both of which demonstrate the versatility of the bassoon, and the fluency and textural variety of Perkins’ playing of the instrument. I am inclined, however, to think that this may be the best of the three albums.

Glyn Pursglove

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Contents
Michael Norris (b.1934)
‘Tango No.2’, from Three Dances (1980)*
Laurence Perkins with Amy Thompsom, Catriona McDermid (bassoons)
Michael Head (1900-1976)
‘Clouds’, No.1 of Three Fantastic Pieces (1976)*
Laurence Perkins with John Flinders
Henri Sauget (1901-1989)
Barcarolle (1936)
Laurence Perkins with Eira Lynn Jones
Gordon Jacob (1895-1984)
Suite for Bassoon and string quartet
Laurence Perkins with the Carducci Quartet
Jean-Michel Damase (1928-2013
Automne*Laurence Perkins with John Flinders
Thomas Simaku (b.1958)
‘Andante and Scerzo’*
Laurence Perkins with Catriona McDermid, Amy Thompson bassoons, Matthew Kitteringham (bassoons),
Joseph Holbrooke (1878-1958)
Souvenir ‘Valse’ from Six Pieces (1906)*
Laurence Perkins with John Flinders
Robin Walker (b.1953)
Twilight (2005)*
Laurence Perkins (bassoon)
Ruth Gipps (1921-1999)
Honey-coloured cow (1938)
Laurence Perkins with John Flinders
Vernon Elliott (1912-1996)
Ivor the Engine, signature tune, composer’s version for bassoon quartet (c.1959)*
Laurence Perkins with Catriona McDermid, Amy Thompson, Matthew Kitteringham (bassoons)
Joseph Horowitz (1926-2022)
Rumpole of the Bailey
Laurence Perkins with Catriona McDermid, Amy Thompson (bassoons), Matthew Kitteringham (contra-bassoon)
Alan Ridout (1934-1996)
Pigs ‘A Present for Gordon Jacob
Laurence Perkins with Catriona McDermid, Amy Thompson, Matthew Kitteringham (bassoons)
Laurence Perkins (b.1954)
Darkness at Derwentwater (1972)*
Laurence Perkins with John Flinders
Heitor Villa-Lobos (1887-1959)
Ciranda das sete notas W325
Laurence Perkins with the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra / William Goodchild (conductor)
*premiere recording