Due to my busy college schedule, time for travelling and trying bassoons abroad was rather limited. After exhausting options in the UK, I broadened my search to Europe. My professors Joost Bosdijk and Sarah Burnett were extremely helpful, as was Simon Channing, RCM Head of Woodwind. I asked around for advice on how to find one and fundraise for it. All my professors play on Heckels and encouraged me to look for one too it would last me my whole career and would be worth taking time to search for now, not waiting till graduation. I knew I had to start somewhere, so began applying and searching for funding, getting my name out there as someone seeking a Heckel bassoon. When I got to the Royal College of Music, all my professors said I needed a new instrument and it was only during my first year recital that I realised this: I was discovering new things I wanted to do with my sound yet couldn’t physically express them on the instrument I had. These instruments are considered special compared with other bassoons because they have a certain resonance, and each exhibits a different character. In my sixth form, I heard the name ‘Heckel’ thrown around amongst bassoonists. Since then, innumerable further inventions in the field of woodwind instruments characterise our company history.Hello! My name is Ashby Mayes and I am delighted to have just purchased a new bassoon after almost a year of serious searching. The active contact with the composer Richard Wagner gave Wilhelm Heckel the inspiration for the construction of the heckelphone, one of his most successful developments, which is still produced. In addition to bassoons and contrabassoons, Heckel produced many other woodwind instruments such as clarinets, clarinas, oboes, flutes, basset horns (alto clarinet) and English horns.
Heckel and Carl Almenräder bassoon factory.Īfter the retirement of Almenräder, Johann Adam Heckel continued to lead the company alone, until he was later joined by his son, Wilhelm, under the name Wilhelm Heckel Biebrich.
The company founder, Johann Adam Heckel, was born in Adorf in Vogtland in 1812 and learned the craft of instrument making from an early age.Īround 1830 he met Carl Almenräder, who was a musician at the Duke of Nassau Court in Biebrich. Heckel Bassoons is one of the oldest wooden instrument making workshops in the world.
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