Definitions
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.
- noun The largest and lowest pitched of the double-reed wind instruments, sounding an octave below the bassoon.
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.
- noun music A larger version of the
bassoon sounding one octave lower, having a technique similar to the bassoon but offers more resistance in every way.
from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.
- noun the bassoon that is the largest instrument in the oboe family
Etymologies
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License
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Examples
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You can also hear that the contrabassoon is more difficult to play, even in the hands of a top player like Lipnick.
Audio: The contrabassoon vs. contraforte Mike McPhate 2010
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“The contrabassoon is more resistant and you have to do more to make it work,” Lipnick says.
Audio: The contrabassoon vs. contraforte Mike McPhate 2010
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“The spark of divinity can be present in a liverwurst just as well as in a contrabassoon,” he wrote in his preface to the work.
Audio: The contrabassoon vs. contraforte Mike McPhate 2010
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At first hearing, the similarities between the contraforte and the contrabassoon are evident: both instruments hang out in the dark, lowest register of the double-reed universe.
Audio: The contrabassoon vs. contraforte Mike McPhate 2010
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Erwin Schulhoff (1894-1942) wrote “Bass Nightingale” for the contrabassoon as a deliberate provocation to so-called aesthetes.
Audio: The contrabassoon vs. contraforte Mike McPhate 2010
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Lewis Lipnick, the contrabassoonist of the NSO, plays Schulhoff's piece on the contrabassoon, the instrument he has been playing for more than 40 years:
Audio: The contrabassoon vs. contraforte Mike McPhate 2010
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Dee: I don't mean to question your analysis, Commander, but it has normal brown eyes and was not an instant virtuoso on the contrabassoon.
Barnstorming on an Invisible Segway mrissa 2009
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(Soundbite of music) LUNDEN: Mehldau has stretched his sonic palette on "Highway Rider" to include a chamber orchestra with strings, horns and contrabassoon.
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That usually refers to works that go to the extremes of the orchestra, beyond the meat-and-potatoes of strings and winds and brass: a stroke of harp, a shimmer of cymbal, the mellow birdcall of an oboe d'amore or the flatulence of a contrabassoon.
Hans Graf conducts Jean-Yves Thibaudet, National Symphony in Ravel, Debussy 2010
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Which is probably why there are a lot of people who can play piano and not that many the contrabassoon and double bass.
Which one/s were you? Age 2-10 Elizabeth McClung 2009
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