File:Burn - The Grand Concerto for 24 Bassoons.webm

English: On 11 December 1744 a concert was given for the benefit of John Ernest Galliard at Lincoln’s Inn Fields. Following a performance of Love and Folly, as well as four choruses written for the tragedy Julius Caesar, a “Concerto grosso, 24 Bassoons, accompanied by Caporale on the violoncello” was performed. The concerto is the only work of this instrumentation on record and was more likely produced in the spirit of creating a novel entertainment than for artistic reasons. Sadly, this work, as well as any other information about its performance, has been lost.

In response to our predicament, Andrew Burn has composed a new concerto for 24 bassoons. Basing it upon a variety of music by both contemporary composers active in London, as well as those whose music Galliard was familiar with at the time of his benefit, this new concerto is stylistically plausible for the scenario of a performance in mid-century Britain. The intention behind this work was to present an entirely new creation, not to try and reconstruct the original using Galliard’s surviving works as a basis.

The structure of the concerto was modeled upon those found in Handel’s Op. 6 and is ordered as follows.

 Prelude-grave;  Fuga-allegro;  adagio;  Hornpipe-allegro;  adagio;  Air;  Gavotta.

This video shows a selection of movements from a recital at the Schola Cantorum Basiliensis on May 27, 2016. All bassoons in this video are copies of originals from the 18th century, pitched at A=415Hz.

Like this video? Find more at http://www.theheckeler.ca

or at the facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/theheckeler