This joyous new disc takes us deep into the wondrous world of all-things bassoonoriginal pieces, arrangements time-tested and well loved, and new versions for the instrument of old favourites. Longfellow described the bassoon as a distant voice in the darknessLaurence Perkins takes up the challenge in his arrangements of wordless songs by Faure and Ravel; folk song finds its placea nod to the instruments distinguished ancestry dating all the way back to the medieval period; and humour, of course, is never far awaythe bassoon is after all (to paraphrase Ashlyns bizarre dialogue between voice and bassoon) an instrument as much suited to the innuendo-laden serenading of ones lover as to the killing of rodents