contrabassoon

You can also hear that the contrabassoon is more difficult to play, even in the hands of a top player like Lipnick.

Audio: The contrabassoon vs. contraforte

“The contrabassoon is more resistant and you have to do more to make it work,” Lipnick says.

Audio: The contrabassoon vs. contraforte

“The spark of divinity can be present in a liverwurst just as well as in a contrabassoon,” he wrote in his preface to the work.

Audio: The contrabassoon vs. contraforte

At first hearing, the similarities between the contraforte and the contrabassoon are evident: both instruments hang out in the dark, lowest register of the double-reed universe.

Audio: The contrabassoon vs. contraforte

Erwin Schulhoff (1894-1942) wrote “Bass Nightingale” for the contrabassoon as a deliberate provocation to so-called aesthetes.

Audio: The contrabassoon vs. contraforte

Lewis Lipnick, the contrabassoonist of the NSO, plays Schulhoff's piece on the contrabassoon, the instrument he has been playing for more than 40 years:

Audio: The contrabassoon vs. contraforte

Dee: I don't mean to question your analysis, Commander, but it has normal brown eyes and was not an instant virtuoso on the contrabassoon.

Barnstorming on an Invisible Segway

(Soundbite of music) LUNDEN: Mehldau has stretched his sonic palette on "Highway Rider" to include a chamber orchestra with strings, horns and contrabassoon.

Brad Mehldau: Beyond The Boundaries Of Jazz

That usually refers to works that go to the extremes of the orchestra, beyond the meat-and-potatoes of strings and winds and brass: a stroke of harp, a shimmer of cymbal, the mellow birdcall of an oboe d'amore or the flatulence of a contrabassoon.

Hans Graf conducts Jean-Yves Thibaudet, National Symphony in Ravel, Debussy

Which is probably why there are a lot of people who can play piano and not that many the contrabassoon and double bass.

Which one/s were you? Age 2-10