In 2019 composer Taylor Brook created a set of semi-improvised pieces for bassoonist Dana Jessen. The process was a collaborative one, with Brook crafting the pieces in light of specific techniques that Jessen, a virtuoso performer who for years has devoted herself to expanding the expressive range of her instrument, has developed. The result is Set, a suite of four Songs and three rules-constrained, semi-improvised Interludes for bassoon and electronics, with the composer supplying the latter.
The Songs appropriately enough are built around the songlike, vocal properties Jessen is able to coax from the bassoon: keening long-duration notes from the upper register, microtonal drifts up and down, sudden leaps into the lower register, unpitched bursts of breath. Brook augments Jessen’s performance with an electronic environment frequently featuring chords made up of layered bassoon notes—an ersatz wind ensemble. The Interludes have a looser, more spontaneous feel and play more directly with Brook’s electronic interventions: he alters the bassoon’s timbres, multiplies its voice into swarms of sound, loops it, turns it into a tamboura or a buzzsaw. Yet throughout it all the focus remains on the instrument and on Jessen’s ability to make it speak with a highly personal eloquence. Her playing is both forceful and controlled, her tone and intonation impeccable. And while the extensive technical vocabulary she’s developed is a point of interest, it never overshadows her essentially melodic and deeply musical sensibility.
Daniel Barbiero
Avant Music News 