Weber Bassoon Concerto 200th anniversary performance, London

This video is an audio recording of a live (unedited) concert performance of the Bassoon Concerto by Carl Maria von Weber Op.75, given in London on 3rd August 2022, exactly 200 years (to the day) after the composer completed the final version of the work. This performance is an arrangement of the Concerto for solo bassoon with bassoon / contrabassoon accompaniment, created by bassoonist Laurence Perkins who also conducted the performance. The soloist is Amy Thompson, with an ensemble of mainly amateur bassoonists who gathered together at the Kennedy Hall in Cecil Sharp House for an afternoon session to celebrate the 200th anniversary of this wonderful concerto. The images are still photos taken during the afternoon session, interspersed with excerpts from Weber's original manuscript which bears the completion date: 3rd August 1822. These excerpts are reproduced by kind permission of the Staatsbibliothek in Berlin, where the original manuscript is preserved. Weber wrote his Concerto for bassoon and orchestra Op.75 in November 1811 for George Friedrich Brandt (1773- 1836), bassoonist in the Munich Orchestra. It follows the immediate success of his Clarinet Concertino (written for Heinrich Bärmann), and the Bassoon Concerto was first performed by Brandt in the Munich Hoftheater on 28th December 1811. Brandt gave at least three further performances of the Concerto before Weber returned to the work in 1822, making several revisions before passing it on to his publisher Schlesinger in Berlin who published the Concerto the following year.