Sonata pian' e forte
by Giovanni Gabrieli
Set of Parts - Sheet Music

Bassoon choir

SKU: IG.PDP103

Composed by Giovanni Gabrieli. Score and Parts. Imagine Music Publishing #PDP103. Published by Imagine Music Publishing (IG.PDP103).

9 x 12 in inches.

The Sonata pian ' e forte was given a new sound when the British bassoonist and musicologist William Waterhouse (1931-2007) transcribed the piece for an ensemble of eight bassoons. Gabrieli suggested in the original publication that the piece could be played an interval of a fourth lower than it was notated. Waterhouse followed that suggestion and the music falls neatly within the comfortable range of the modem bassoon. Bill also provided breath/phrasing marks which help to delineate the structure of the counterpoint. I would like to thank Mrs. Elizabeth Waterhouse and Mr. Graham Waterhouse for their kind permission to publish Bill's transcription of this piece.

This transcription was performed as the opening selection at a Memorial Concert for William Waterhouse at the International Double Reed Society Conference at Brigham Young University in Provo, Utah, on Saturday, 26 July 2008. For that concert, the forte passages in the eighth bassoon part (Choir 2/4) were doubled by a contrabassoon. This was so effective that it was decided to include that instrument in the present publication, even though it was not a part of Bill's own score. The piece may, of course, be performed without the added contrabassoon.