Oboe

Although this recording is now at least temporarily out of press it combines the finest oboist of our day, Holliger, with the most sensitive interpreter of Telemann in my experience: Iona Brown with the Orchestra of St. Martin and the Fields. That's particularly important because groups that don't understand or exploit Telemann's sense of musical drama, instrumental color and special effects, and ingenious interactions between orchestra and soloist can reduce a blood-pressure raising work to just baroque music. I expect to offer a more detailed sampler of Telemann recordings and comment in the future. For now let me point out the opening oboe concerto as a unique masterpiece.

Anthony Camden, for years principal oboe of the LSO, here makes a very welcome solo appearance on disc, playing with typical point and style, using his attractively reedy tone. The regular oboe concertos are well supplemented by the Suite in G minor as edited by Camden, where he is joined by the prize-winning Julia Girdwood on the second oboe. The Otho Overture too features prominent roles for oboes in duet. Ward and the City of London Sinfonia are sympathetic accompanists using modern instruments. First-rate sound from All Saints, East Finchley.

Ferlendis composed four oboe concertos which, up until now, existed only in nineteenth-century copies of the scores, with only one being recorded. This is the first time these have been recorded on CD. Although the concertos contain some clear elements of Mozartian coinage, their melodic wealth of ideas and natural elegance point to the composer’s Italian temperament. Six trios, here in the instrumentation for oboe, flute, and bassoon, round off the recording.

The fourth volume in The Fibonacci Sequence’s acclaimed series of CD’s focussing on a solo instrument. In this case it’s the turn of the oboe, featuring Christopher O’Neal. The Fibonacci Sequence is now well established as one of the finest chamber ensembles in Britain. This witty collection of music for oboe and chamber ensemble, highlights, as oboist Christopher O’Neal describes “the humour of Françaix, the irony of Poulenc, the brilliance of Crusell and the easy charm of Alwyn.” But, he adds, “the two Mozart pieces have it all, and in spades!”

Bohemian born Josef Fiala (1748-1816) was renowned as an oboist, receiving a letter of recommendation from none other than Leopold Mozart. So it is no surprise that his compositions often favor that wind instrument, including the two quartets on this recording. Both follow a four movement structure, each a minuet in a different sequence. In the opening ‘Allegro spirituoso’ of the F Major Quartet, the oboe immediately grabs the spotlight and never lets go. With a faint violin as an echo, the solo wind drives this relentlessly charming 1st movement through a brief minor keyed interlude and solo passages brimming with triplets.

An hour of music for solo oboe, anyone? Don't knock it until you try it. This album is an exemplary effort not only by the somehow appropriately named oboist Yeon-Hee Kwak but also by the engineers at Germany's MDG label, who provide a resonant castle-hall setting that perfectly illuminates (resonates?) the registral effects on which oboe music depends. The program is diverse and challenges both Kwak's technical and expressive abilities, opening with Bach, whose absolute music transcended the distinction. The Partita for solo oboe, BWV 1013, is a transcription of a partita for solo flute, and the concluding Tango-Etudes of Astor Piazzolla were also originally flute works.

A new Naxos recording offering two of Hofmann's oboe concerti and two concerti for oboe and harpsichord proves that the prolific Viennese composer could write nice tunes and develop them with spiffy efficiency. Both technical bravura and the expressive colours of the oboe are well explored in these conventional but vivacious three-movement concerti. Stefan Schilli (principal oboe of the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra), Jeno Jando (harpsichord) and the Nicolaus Esterhazy Sinfonia under Bela Drahos play with superb panache and discipline; the sound engineering is wonderfully transparent and detailed notes are included.

Ray Still, principal oboist of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra for forty years, was praised by the Chicago Tribune for his “distinctively rich, mellow, singing tone”. He joins Perlman, Pinchas Zukerman and Lynn Harrell in this programme of oboe quartets, with Mozart as the centrepiece.

Heinz Holliger is widely considered the greatest oboe virtuoso of modern times. He is also a noted composer and conductor; as a composer he is one of the few who has maintained a strict adherence to serial procedures. Holliger has been the recipient of many prizes, including the Robert Schumann Prize of the City of Zwickau in Germany, and he is an honorary member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.

This CD is probably unique. The oboe was relegated in the romantic age as the clarinet gained favour. So there are few chamber works for oboe from this period, and those that exist are rarely recorded. But to have several of these pieces on one disc and played so well on period instruments makes this a real treat. The instruments are an 1850 Triebert oboe and Erard pianoforte. These are not so different technically from their modern counterparts, but in these musicians' hands they deliver a warm, distinctive sound that would be hard to emulate with modern instruments.