contrabassoon

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contrabassoon

contrabassoon large, deep-toned instrument of the oboe family, also called double bassoon. Its tube, over 16 ft (5 m) long, is doubled upon itself four times. It was first made by Hans Schreiber of Berlin in 1620. Handel, Haydn, and Beethoven used it for special effects, but it was characterized by faulty intonation until a German, Wilhelm Heckel, in the late 19th cent. made the type generally used today.

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"contrabassoon." The Columbia Encyclopedia, Sixth Edition. 2008. Encyclopedia.com. 15 Nov. 2009 <http://www.encyclopedia.com>.

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double bassoon

The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Music | 1996 | | Â© The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Music 1996, originally published by Oxford University Press 1996. (Hide copyright information) Copyright

double bassoon (contrabassoon; Fr. ‘contrebasson’; Ger. ‘Kontrafagott’). Wind instr. octave deeper than bassoon and notated octave higher than it sounds, though Wagner and Debussy sometimes wrote for it at pitch. Some baroque examples were made but standard modern design is Heckel's (1876). Conical bore tube is 18′ long, with 5 parallel sections connected by 4 U-bends. Crook fits into metal tube. Brahms scored for it in his 1st Sym. In Strauss's Salome there is a long solo for the instr. when Jokanaan descends into his cell.

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MICHAEL KENNEDY and JOYCE BOURNE. "double bassoon." The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Music. 1996. Encyclopedia.com. 15 Nov. 2009 <http://www.encyclopedia.com>.

MICHAEL KENNEDY and JOYCE BOURNE. "double bassoon." The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Music. 1996. Encyclopedia.com. (November 15, 2009). http://www.encyclopedia.com/doc/1O76-doublebassoon.html

MICHAEL KENNEDY and JOYCE BOURNE. "double bassoon." The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Music. 1996. Retrieved November 15, 2009 from Encyclopedia.com: http://www.encyclopedia.com/doc/1O76-doublebassoon.html

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