Phyllis McGinley Song Cycle

It's been a year since the bassoon world lost one of its leading figures; K. David Van Hoesen. I thought it would be fitting to upload the wonderful recording he made with Jan DeGaetani

and his daughter, Gretchen Van Hoesen

of Alec Wilder's Phyllis McGinley Song Cycle. Listen here:

Here are the poems he set:

Malambo, Nostalgica and Wilder videos

I've just uploaded some videos to YouTube.

Malambo, Op.115 by Miguel del Aguila. This is my live performance from May of this year with the MOSA quartet.

Nostalgica for Bassoon and String Quartet, also from May performance. Miguel revised this piece for our performance. 

And, continuing my homage to my former teacher, K. David Van Hoesen, here is his recording of Alec Wilder's Sonata #3 for Bassoon and Piano with Bill Dobbins.

Van Hoesen Teaching, Part 3 -- Reading and Listening

David Van Hoesen was interested in the overall education of his students. He encouraged his students to seek out recordings of the best violinists, pianists, singers and orchestras. He believed that a fine bassoonist should also have knowledge of literature and art.

Here is his reading and listening list:

Van Hoesen Teaching, Part 2, Scales and Arpeggios

Below is David Van Hoesen's Scale and Arpeggio routine. The goal is to become familiar with the different scale patterns and chords in a particular key during a week's worth of practicing (one key per week). All exercises except the Broken Arpeggio are to be done with a metronome for evenness and speed.

Along with perfecting the technique, the focus should be on playing with a beautiful sound, good intonation and a musical sense in all registers.

The Arpeggios in Sequence are taken directly from a violin exercise by Carl Flesch.

A word about the Broken Arpeggio exercise. It is to be done slowly working for a beautiful, smooth connection between notes. Pay attention to embouchure, breath support and smooth, gentle fingers to achieve a smooth, expressive slur for each interval. This is a great exercise for breaking in new reeds as well!

Here is another version of this that may print more clearly. It is also available on my website. Scroll nearly to the bottom to find it.

K. David Van Hoesen - Teaching, Part 1

This is the first in a series of posts about the teaching of K. David Van Hoesen (1926-2015). He was the bassoon teacher at the Eastman School of Music from the mid-1950's through the 1980's. Former students of his populate the major orchestras of the United States and the faculties of many music schools across the country.

Van Hoesen passed on his teaching orally in lessons and master classes. Therefore, there's not a lot of written material to be had covering his teaching. However, I've collected a few things and his son-in-law, oboist Jim Gorton has shared some material with me.

The following must have been a set of notes he used for a class. He mentions the Saint-Sans Bassoon Sonata and must have taught that in the class. These are maxims we heard in our lessons on a regular basis.

Perhaps a few of these maxims require a bit of explanation. #4 and #5, "Slow notes go fast, fast notes go slow" doesn't mean to rush longer value notes and drag shorter value notes.

The idea here is to create motion during long notes so the phrase doesn't die. With faster notes, the idea is to make sure they take up all the space they're allowed so they are expressive, voiced with the same care as a long note and don't get compressed.