This
piece requires enormous virtuosity, if only because the player must employ
circular-breathing technique throughout; the result is a work sounding for 19
minutes without breaks or pauses for breath. The work was tailor-made for
French bassoonist Pascal Gallois, who added the special annotations to the
score.

Berio
callsSequenza XIIa meditation on
the circumstance that the bassoon perhaps more than any other wind instrument
seems to have oppositional characteristics in its personality differing
profiles, differing articulation options, differing characteristics of timbre
and dynamics.