Helen Glatz

Hungarian Folk Song Suite

A three movement suite, scored for 2 Bassoons and Piano, by Helen Glatz: 1908-1996. The Hungarian Folk-Song Suite arose from Helen Glatz's feeling that there is a need for more original music for bassoon(s) as solo instrument(s) with piano. She also noticed the kinship between the bassoon and the Hungarian folk instrument, the tárogató, which is associated with the 18th century nationalist struggle against the Hapsburgs. In the 1890s, during another period of nationalist revival, some Hungarian folk instruments were successfully modernised (e.g. the cimbalom) and the tárogató, a fierce member of the shawm family, was transformed into a wooden saxophone (used by Wagner in Tristan). Helen Glatz's Suite brings together her concern for the bassoon and her love of things Hungarian, and is dedicated to Isolde Summers.