BOOKS AND tutors
Books
Tutors
The Contrabassoon: A Guide to Performance by Cornelia Anderson-Biggers remains the only publication devoted solely to the Contra looking in depth at Fingerings, Tone Production, Reeds and Performance Problems and including a simple fingering chart. She gives advice on the technique needed in tricky passages, two sets of reed dimensions and instructions on how to make a mute, but there are no excerpts or studies.
Volume 6 of Das Fagott by Seltmann and Angerhofer concentrates on the Contra and is commonly used. Containing a variety of studies and exercises, a large amount of useful orchestral repertoire and a comprehensive fingering chart including those for trills. Another more recent publication is Il Controfagotto by Inconis which is comparable in its depth, as well as Piard’s Enseignement du Contrebasson.
The three tutors mentioned above contain the bulk of excerpts a Contra player will need, although you will always find a few in one book and not in another. There is also Orchester Studien Kontrafagott by Rudolf Seith which only contains excerpts and is widely used in Germany. There are about 20 excerpts in Righini’s Il Fagotto in Orchestra as well as some in specialist single composer volumes for the likes of Stravinsky and Schoenberg.