Your Favourite Oboe Work

[aeolium]

My favourite role for the oboe is in chamber works with strings and/or other wind, e.g. the Mozart Wind Serenades or the Schubert Octet. A work I've recently enjoyed discovering is Prokofiev's Quintet in G minor (sometimes called an Oboe Quintet, though I can't see any particular prominence for the oboe) - very idiosyncratic, with an interesting combination of instruments: oboe, clarinet, violin, viola and double-bass. There are quite a few recordings of it, though I've enjoyed the performance by the Ensemble Walter Boeykens.

[Beef Oven!]

I depends upon how you define an oboe work. As an oboist, my favourites included obligato movements, such as those in Bach's St Matthew Passion and Christmas Oratorio. One I've played many times in concert in recent years is "The Lord is my Shepherd" from Rutter's Requiem.

(But if you were thinking this might be a commercial to tempt you to ask me to play - don't ask. I sold my fabulous Rigoutat Expression oboe a couple of years ago, as it wasn't getting many outings. My spare one just ain't the same. Do I regret selling it? Sometimes, yes. But I'm concentrating on piano accompaniment now. Plenty to do! )

I'd say any work where the oboe catches one's attention. Not just concertos and the like. Quite a wide category.

Well, there's Toxteth O'Grady's composition 'Oboe, Egg, Sausage & Oboe' Op. 8 - that's not got a lot of oboe in it ...

[gurnemanz]

Massive box from Brilliant Classics (Volume 1!). Looks interesting but maybe only for fanatics.

[Dave2002]

Massive box from Brilliant Classics (Volume 1!). Looks interesting but maybe only for fanatics.

If you start with Bellini - via this Youtube - https://www.google.com/search?q=Bell...ient=firefox-b - you'll probably then go through some JC Bach, CPE Bach concertos etc. which are very pleasant.

Some of those might be on the Brilliant set, which I'm guessing should be available cheaply.

Actually not ultra cheap - but nevertheless affordable for enthusiasts - http://www.bookbutler.co.uk/music/co...=5028421954103 Between £25-£35 at present I think.

i think it may have been much cheaper once.

[edashtav]

One that used to crop up regularly on R3 morning programmes (long before Breakfast and EC) was L'horloge de Flore by Jean Français (John de Lancie/LSO/Previn was the recording of choice, IIRC).
(…).

Delightfully tuneful and witty.

[Darkbloom]

The modern oboe sound seems (at least to me) much more warm and open than in recordings from the '50s for example. I'm not just thinking of the famously rustic VPO oboe, but in general they had a more pinched, nasal quality than the mellower sound we hear now. Has there been a technical change in the last few decades? Is it old recording techniques giving a misleading impression (as they can do with the voice)? Or are there simply better players now?

[Joseph K]

The first thing that sprang to my mind was this:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OoNkUfxgMj8

[MickyD]

How could I have forgotten the wonderful CPE Bach oboe concertos? I have the version by Ku Ebbinge/Koopman, but this newish recording of Wq164 is really lovely:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Udpaj8K93fU

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

The first thing that sprang to my mind was this:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OoNkUfxgMj8

- I hadn't thought of that , but this did occur to me:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bXy7jV8XXtY

(depends how you define an "oboe", of course! )

[Stanfordian]

I'm rather fond of the Bliss and Bax oboe quintets.

[Dave2002]

The modern oboe sound seems (at least to me) much more warm and open than in recordings from the '50s for example. I'm not just thinking of the famously rustic VPO oboe, but in general they had a more pinched, nasal quality than the mellower sound we hear now. Has there been a technical change in the last few decades? Is it old recording techniques giving a misleading impression (as they can do with the voice)? Or are there simply better players now?

Not sure about this. I doubt that the recordings are so different now from 25-75 years ago. Surely Beecham's Arrival of the Queen of Sheba should give (two) oboe sounds which are similar to today's. I think there are sometimes style differences - possibly regional. I have one recording of Mahler 4 (Mengelberg, Jo Vincent) which has what by modern standards sounds like a very sour oboe - but maybe the players at the time, or the conductors, or the listeners, liked that. I don't think they were technically poor.

[Richard Barrett]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bXy7jV8XXtY

(depends how you define an "oboe", of course! )

Gosh, I hadn't even heard of that one. There's the early work Coloratura with piano as well of course, and Allgebrah with string ensemble.

Regarding CPE Bach, I realise I don't know his oboe concertos (except perhaps in their versions for keyboard) which means I'll have to listen to them RIGHT NOW. I don't see either Gardellino or Koopman in Qobuz, but there's one on Brilliant Classics with Anna Starr and Musica Poetica, new names to me I think, so let's see how that goes.

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

Gosh, I hadn't even heard of that one.

Written for (and with) Christopher Redgate and his new quarter-tone Oboe - I was at the HCMF premiere a couple of years ago.

There's the early work Coloratura with piano as well of course, and Allgebrah with string ensemble.

[Richard Barrett]

Christopher Redgate and his new quarter-tone Oboe

I know all about that of course - in fact it isn't just a quartertone oboe, it also has an extended upper range (which was its main "selling point" for me personally) made possible by a new fourth-octave key, so that pitches previously available only in the form of unstable squeaks can be played much more controllably.

[jayne lee wilson]

My own favourite 20th Century choices, I think so far unmentioned:

David Matthews Oboe Concerto Op.57
(on Dutton, c/w the 2 lovely Violin Concertos, a peach of a disc)

Morton Feldman Oboe & Orchestra

Berio Chemins IV/(from Sequenza VII)

Holmboe Chamber Concertos 7 & 13 (double with viola)

Lutoslawski Oboe/Harp Double Concerto

***
It’s a rich literature…there’s Max Davies of course, and Maderna wrote three, which I’d probably like but can’t recall ever hearing …
…as for CPE Bach, the summery E-flat major WQ 165 is even more gloriously, hauntingly memorable than the WQ 164 mentioned earlier…
Try the opening with Barokkanerne.... once heard...

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Bernardini-...s=barokkanerne