Fine bassoon teachers are a rarity in all but cities with major symphony orchestras and/or a university with a distinguished music department faculty. William Spencer took up the challenge of providing material for the serious bassoonist with The Art of Bassoon Playing, published in 1958. With William Spencer's approval, Frederick Mueller took on the task of bringing to notice recent changes in bassoon playing, pedagogy, and manufacture, resulting in revised edition of The Art of Bassoon Playing.

This collection of essays explores consolation and mourning in the varied, sometimes provocative, readings of Boethius and of Stoic consolation by French, English, Italian and German authors, including Dante, Petrarch, Boccaccio, Machaut, Chaucer, Wyatt and Queen Elizabeth I.