‘Bassoon Concertos’ – Karen Geoghegan, BBC PO, Gianandrea Noseda

Chandos signed Karen Geoghegan as an exclusive artist in 2007 following her wonderful performances on the BBC TV ‘The Classical Star’ programme. This is her fourth recording with the label, following her CD of works by Hummel, Weber, Berwald, Jacobi, Elgar and Gershwin, her CD of French music for bassoon and piano, and her contribution, in the Suite-Concertino in F major, to Noseda’s Wolf-Ferrari CD. All of these received much acclaim, and the expressive maturity and sensitivity of her playing have quickly cemented her status as a rising star:

Whereas Mozart’s work is widely recognised as the veritable cornerstone of the bassoon repertoire, the compositions by Crusell and Kreutzer are little-heard but distinguished vehicles for the instrument. Rossini’s Bassoon Concerto was completely unknown until relatively recently. It was only in the early 1990s that it came to light among a nineteenth-century collection of manuscripts that had been archived at the library in Ostiglia, near Mantua. Vigorous and exhilarating, but with a dreamy and pensive second movement, this Concerto was a real find. In the third movement, Rossini puts the bassoon through some hair-raising paces across the whole range of its available register, before finally providing a satisfyingly high-spirited ending to an intriguing work.