Carl Almenräder was a German performer, teacher and composer.The design of the modern bassoon owes a great deal to Almenräder, who, assisted by the German acoustics researcher Gottfried Weber developed the 17-key bassoon whose range spanned four octaves. Almenräder's improvements to the bassoon began with an 1823 treatise in which he described ways of improving intonation, response, and technical ease of playing by means of augmenting and rearranging the keywork; subsequent articles further developed his ideas.