DARKER THINGS | ART MUSIC LOUNGE

I’ll just bet you’ve been sitting around your living room on these summer evenings asking yourself, “When are we finally going to hear a bassoon duo playing modern music?” Well, your prayers have been answered, because here is Tuple, comprising of bassoonists Rachael Elliott and Lynn Hileman. After meeting as students at Yale they decided to become a duo in 2006 and have performed at experimental art and music venues across the U.S. They’ve also given master classes at Yale, Northwestern University, and the Universities of Michigan, Vermont and North Carolina (two of the latter).

And Lord love them, they really get into their music. The first piece on this new album, Marc Mellits’ Black, is actually a pretty jaunty piece in fast 6/8 time, with our intrepid bassoonists playing energetically opposite each other in counterpoint (and occasionally in thirds) as the music jogs along. At 1:42, the music suddenly backs off its perpetual-motion 6/8 and moves into a sort of rollicking syncopation in 4/4. It’s a fun piece to listen to if not really interesting in development—too much repetition in the rhythmic figures for my taste.