Cincinnati-based actor and writer Sean Mette has assembled a solo performance rooted in an event from August 1705 involving a fight between composer Johann Sebastian Bach and an amateur musician, Johann Geyersbach.
At age 20, Bach was hired to oversee music for a church in Arnstadt, Germany; Geyersbach, 23, played bassoon in a student orchestra there that Bach grudgingly conducted. Apparently the already renowned young composer was disdainful of many of his performers, several of whom were older than he. He particular ridiculed Geyersbach, reportedly calling him a zippel faggotist (translated variously as a “nanny-goat bassoonist” or a “greenhorn bassoonist”). Complicating matters was Geyersbach’s infatuation with Barbara, a young pianist and Bach’s cousin — and, in fact, his eventual wife.
Geyersbach recruited a few other musicians whom Bach had verbally abused, and one evening they accosted the composer as he strolled through a park with Barbara. Geyersbach, a larger man, thrashed Bach with his cane; Bach pulled out a dagger. The men were eventually pulled apart. Bach brought the case before a church court in Arnstadt. Geyersbach was declared guilty but not punished, since Bach’s insult had provoked the attack. Bach was advised to learn to get along with his students.
Mette, attired in a maroon brocade vest and matching tie, relates the incident as if he were delivering testimony to the church court. He frames it as a “story of love,” a courting of Barbara that went off track with her cousin’s arrival. Mette, a veteran comic performer familiar to audiences at Madcap Theatre, Know and The Carnegie, plays the role straight ahead, despite several moments that could possibly have been made humorous.
As Geyersbach, he has occasional exchanges with the court’s judge and with Barbara, both simply “offstage” voices (Brian Mette, Liz Carman). Mette also mimes playing the bassoon. It might have been more effective if these brief interludes had been off-key or somehow more mistake-ridden, but to my untrained ear, they didn’t sound like something that would evoke Bach’s jibes — unless we were meant to believe that his harsh comments were unfounded.
Mette is a good actor: he ably presents Geyersbach as a somewhat misguided, rather foolish romantic, seemingly unrealistic about his musical abilities and his potential to become the world’s greatest bassoonist. The 50-minute video monologue is broken up with black-outs and angle and position changes, but Mette is pretty much always front and center, using a trunk and a conductor’s music stand as props. That’s not quite enough visual variety to sustain the necessary energy. A modern outburst (with bassoon accompaniment) that Mette delivers as the finale is amusing, but an odd break in character.
Nevertheless, The Bassoonist provides an interesting historical anecdote, the kind of quirky subject matter that certainly fits within the Cincy Fringe.
The 17th annual all-digital Cincinnati Fringe Festival runs through June 13. Get tickets and show info at cincyfringe.com.
This article appears in May 6 – Jun 14, 2020.
