Lip My Reeds (score & parts) - 4BSN

The discovery of this work was commissioned by the Tennessee Bassoon Quartet. Just as there is more satellite-related debris, or space junk, orbiting the earth than one might think, so too is the original repertoire for four bassoons larger than one might think. Even some of the composers in the highest pantheon of music have written bassoon quartets, such as Prokofieff, and, uh, well, such as Prokofieff. P.D.Q. Bach's contribution to the genre, Lip My Reeds, is in all likelihood a transitional work between the shamelessly Mozartian style of the Soused Period and the shamelessly Baroque style of the Contrition Period. As in some of the band works, P.D.Q. makes use here of one of his favorite techniques: at one point some of the bassoonists are required to play their reeds without the rest of the instrument, producing a sound not unlike that which might be produced by ducks who have taken a snort of helium. In the Prelude, the range of the fourth bassoonist's instrument is extended one half-step lower by having one of the other bassoonists insert a cardboard tube into the end of the bassoon. One cannot resist pointing out that Mozart did not think of this when he wrote his otherwise quite charming bassoon concerto