"Devienne initially served as a flautist and bassoonist in various Paris orchestras. He was the solo bassoonist at the Théâtre de Monsieur beginning in about 1791 and was named Professor of Flute at the national guard music institute in 1791. A few years later, in 1795, the institute became the 'Paris Conservatoire'. Many of Devienne's pupils received first prizes at the conservatory and figured importantly in the musical life of the French capital for decades. One such pupil, Joseph Guillon, was later a member of the famous Reicha Quintet and a professor at the Paris Conservatory.
"Devienne also made a very good name for himself as a composer. He was only twenty-one years olf and still performing with various principal and military orchestras when one of his works was performed in Paris for the first time in 1780. Étienne Ozi, the leading bassoonist of the time, performed Devienne's first bassoon concerto at one of the famous 'Concerts Spirituels' (with the composer's name listed as 'de Vienne'). The Théâtre Montansier staged his first opera in 1790 and 'Les visitandines', the most succesful of his operas, in 1792. The latter comic opera was performed over two hundred times between 1792 and 1797. It thus turned out to be one of the most popular stage works of the revolutionary period and was still being performed in Paris in 1920.
"Devienne's chamber music, solo concertos, and symphonies concertantes deserve special mention among the works of enduring value in his œuvre.
"Devienne's concertos for bassoon and orchestra certainly number among the most important of his works for bassoon, a distinction they share with his quartets for bassoon, violin, viola, and violoncello. Although the quartets have been available in modern printed editions as well as in recorded form for many years, only the 'Concerto No. 1' (under the disparaging/distorting title of 'Study Concerto') and the 'Concerto in B-flat major' (of disputed authorship, a matter to be discussed in greater detail below) have continued to be the only bassoon concertos known to the music world or, more precisely, to the bassoon world. The obscurity of Devienne's bassoon concertos has remained a great mystery to bassoonists, who have not exactly been overwhelmed with good music for their instrument. Perhaps the somewhat confused state of the sources explains why it is not until the present compact disc that there has been a recording of all of Devienne's extant bassoon concertos.
"All the sources speak of four concertos, published between 1785 and 1794. Although we may assume that the works were extant in more than one copy, there are only scattered traces of this in the libraries. The score for the present recording of 'Concerto No. 1' was derived from a copy dating to 1824 in the holdings of the Einsiedeln Monastery Library in Switzerland. Copies of the 1794 first printing of 'Concerto No. 2' were obtained from the British Library in London, and the University of Münster Library kindly allowed us to consult the first printing of 'Concerto No. 4' from 1793. The only material currently known to be extant for 'Concerto No. 3' (F major) is too incomplete to record (e.g., the solo part is lacking).
"Why, then, are there four concertos on this recording? Some decades ago a bassoon concerto of great beauty was published. Over the years no one has succeeded in identifying its composer with absolute certainty, but there is much to suggest that he was none other than François Devienne. When the 'Concerto in B-flat major' came to light in 1983, Max Seiffert, its editor, assigned it to Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. The manuscript materials from the Bückerberg Library he consulted for his edition are no longer available to us: the library was completely detroyed during World War II. The manuscript in question bore the title 'Concerto in B/Fagotto Principale/2 Violini/2 Oboi/2 Corni/2 Clarini/Viola con Basso/Dal Sig.re Wolfg. Mozart.'
"Now Mozart is indeed supposed to have composed three or four bassoon concertos, but we have clear extant evidence for only one of them, KV 191. Until the 1950s it was assumed - despite the uncertainty of the Bückerberg source - that another Mozart bassoon concerto had been found. The lost Bückerberg manuscript was known not to have been in Mozart's hand. In the Mozart annual of 1957 Ernest Hess demonstrated that the 'Concerto in B-flat major' cannot have been of Mozart's authorship [...]. Although limitations of space preclude a complete presentation of Hess's line of argumentation here, he did come to the conclusion that the composer of this magnificent piece was none other than our greatly esteemed Devienne. The evidence for this conclusion is extremely convincing. Hess cited score example to show exact agreements between the concerto and another work by Devienne, the 'Six duos concertantes' for two bassoons. In all its important themes the 'Concerto in B-flat major' draws on material from these duos of 1782. The much greater virtuosity of the bassoon part points more toward a commission for a professional, and Mozart wrote his bassoon concertos for a dilettante, the Baron von Dürnitz. In matters of technique the KV 191 concerto is considerably simpler than Devienner's works for bassoon.
"The only internal evidence against Devienne's authorship is the instrumentation of the concerto. The instrumentation including trumpets and timpani depart from that of the four concertos know to have been composed by Devienne. Moreover, we have no reference to a fifth concerto. Here we should remember, however, that Devienne composed his 'Concerto No. 4' in 1794, almost a decade prior to his death, and was at the height of his career during those years. He thus had more than enough time and every reason to compose another concerto. Perhaps it did not appear in printed form, and thus was not listed in th catalogues of his works.
"The present compact disc offers listeners interested in such matters the opportunity to form their own judgment about the fruit of our labours - about whether we have been justified in including the 'Concerto in B-flat major' as a fifth Devienne concerto and about whether it is indeed not time to retrieve his wonderful bassoon concertos from the darkness and obscurity of the archives." (Eckart Hübner, tr. Susan Marie Praeder. From the liner notes.)
Performers: Slovenský Komorný Orchester, Bohdan Warchal, Eckhart Hübner
1. Bassoon Concerto No. 4: I. Allegro Maestoso
2. Bassoon Concerto No. 4: II. Adagio
3. Bassoon Concerto No. 4: III. Minuetto Con Variazione
4. Bassoon Concerto No. 2: I.
5. Bassoon Concerto No. 2: II. Polonaise
6. Bassoon Concerto No. 1: I.
7. Bassoon Concerto No. 1: II. Rondo
8. Bassoon Concerto In B Major (Mozart?): I. Allegro Moderato
9. Bassoon Concerto In B Major (Mozart?): II. Romance: Andante
10. Bassoon Concerto In B Major (Mozart?): III. Rondo: Allegro Moderato
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