Rhapsody by Willson Osborne

Willson Osborne

Willson Osborne was an American composer.After completing the undergraduate program in composition and music theory at the University of Michigan , Osborne was a student of Paul Hindemith at Yale University. Osborne was, like his mentor, a neoclassical composer...

 is a piece originally composed for solo bassoon

Bassoon

The bassoon is a woodwind instrument in the double reed family that typically plays music written in the bass and tenor registers, and occasionally higher. Appearing in its modern form in the 19th century, the bassoon figures prominently in orchestral, concert band and chamber music literature...

 and later adapted for clarinet

Clarinet

The clarinet is a musical instrument of woodwind type. The name derives from adding the suffix -et to the Italian word clarino , as the first clarinets had a strident tone similar to that of a trumpet. The instrument has an approximately cylindrical bore, and uses a single reed...

. The composition was first published by Peters in 1958. It is the most frequently performed work in the solo bassoon repertoire.

Osborne recorded the rhapsody in collaboration with Sol Schoenbach

Sol Schoenbach

Sol Schoenbach was an American bassoonist and teacher.Schoenbach was a student of the distinguished bassoonist Simon Kovar. He studied at the New York University, and held honorary doctorates from Temple University and the Curtis Institute of Music. Schoenbach held the position of staff bassoonist...

for a 1952 radio program of contemporary American music run by WNYC in New York. The piece's working title was "Study for Bassoon", but Osborne intended to make it playable on clarinet as well. According to the composer the piece was written as "abstract music" using "the Oriental technique of variation, in which short song-like fragments are in turn developed". The work is notable for its extensive use of descriptive instructions: only two staves have no such markings.