The Oboe HISTORY The oboe first appeared during the 17th century. Even though the oboe made its orchestral debut in France in 1657, its earliest ancestral oboe like instruments were first used around 2800 B. C. The closest predecessor of the modern oboe is an instrument also part of the double reed family called the shawm, which dates way back to its creation in the 1200’s. The first baroque oboe made out of boxwood was created in France for the purpose of entertaining the French court. Its name was derived from the French word hautbois meaning “high wood” and is what it was actually referred to when it first emerged.
The oboe gained immediate popularity and was found ubiquitous in many countries like Europe and England. By the 1800’s the oboe became an acknowledge member of the orchestra. Surely there were many modifications that evolved the oboe such as adding more keys (also the “slur key”) to the instrument in order to give it a wide range of notes. The reformations of the oboe eventually stopped and have remained basically the same since 1825. The modern oboe equipped with the “full conservatory” key system has 45 pieces of key work and has a range of more than two and a half octaves.
There is little known about the oboe’s exact creator or its creation date. But there are limitless brands and quite a few makers of the oboe. Some renown makers of the past that contributed to the oboe was the prominent instrument making Hotteterre family, oboe professors Georges Gillet and Francois Loree. Of course, they weren’t the only ones. Some of today’s famous oboe makers include but are not limited to F. Loree, Laubin, Howarth, Yamaha, Fox, Covey, Josef, and much, much more. Famous Performers During the Baroque period (1600-1760) and Classical Period (1730-1820) the Besozzis reigned as one of the notable family of oboists.
Many of the members of the Besozzis were Italian oboists. Many generations continued toward the path of becoming oboists and composers. From the Besozzis, a hautboy (Italian term for hautbois) band created by Antonio Farnese in1702. The members of the ducal Guardia Irlandese (Irish Guard) were Antonio Besozzi, Guiseppe Besozzi was, Cristoforo Besozzi, and Alessandro Besozzi. Alessandro Besozzi made quite an achievement during his times. He was responsible for almost two hundred chamber works, over a hundred sonatas, 65 trios, six oboe concertos, and twelve trio sonatas.
Thanks to Alessandro Besozzi, there were successful students that stemmed from his teachings. In the Classical Era, Johann Carl Christian Fischer, a German composer and a famous oboe soloist was one of Besozzi’s successful pupils. Fischer’s music was mostly for oboe and possessed inventive and unexpected turns of melody and other expressive details. Fischer played until a stroke led him to his death. According to New York Times, Heinz Holliger is recognized as “World’s Most Famoust Oboist, arguably the world’s only famous oboist” to this day. He is a Swiss oboist born in 1939 and still alive today.
Winning first place in musical competitions quickly got his skills famously recognized. Holliger gave many concert performances covering all sorts of genres ranging from stage works via orchestral, solo and chamber music works to numerous vocal pieces. One of this works even received a Grammy Award back in 2002. FAMOUS COMPOSERS While going through this course, I came by a musical piece provided in the woodwinds sections. After listening to the Adagio excerpt of Oboe Concerto in D Minor by Benedetto Marcello, I just couldn’t stop. The Oboe Concerto piece may have been Benndetto Marcaello’s best known work.
Marcello was a prominent Italian composer and was best known during his lifetime. Over 400 cantatas were written, nearly 100 small chamber works, opera pieces, and much more. Marcello was more renowned than his brother, Alessandro Marcello, who also had interest in music. However, his contributions are not well-known. During the research I came upon Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart’s Oboe Concerto in C Major, K3. 14 performed by Bart Schneemann. Even though this is the composer’s section, I’d like to say Bart Schneemann has played some fantastic pieces!
Back to Mozart, we know Mozart as one of the most influential figures when it comes to music. I am pretty sure everyone knows or has at least heard of Mozart; same goes for Beethoven. You can say Mozart was pretty much a genius because he wrote musical pieces when he was young as 17 years old. REPERTOIRE 1. Oboe Concerto in C major, Op. 9, No. 5 Tomas Giovanni Albinoni 2. Oboe Concerto No. 3 in G minor, HWV 287 George Friedrich Handel 3. Concerto for Oboe in D minor Alessandro Marcello 4. Concerto for Oboe in D minor, Op. 8 no 9/RV 454 Antonio Vivaldi 5.
Concerto for Oboe d’Amore in G major, TV 51 no G 3 Georg Philipp Telemann FAMOUS ORCHESTRAS London Symphony Orchestra The London Symphony Orchestra is considered to be one of the world’s top orchestra. It was founded in 1904 and have had outstanding musicians from all over the world. The LSO consists of first and second violins, violas, cellos, double basses, flutes, piccolo, oboes, cor anglais, clarinets (e-flat and bass), bassoons, contra bassoon, horns, trumpets, trombones, bass trombone, tuba, timpani, percussion, haprs, and the keyboard and has about 100 members.
I am seriously impressed with this orchestra because that have been chosen to record soundtracks for box office’s top movies like Twilight: New Moon, Tamara Drewe and Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Parts 1 & 2. I would assume that there is much rivalry between all orchestras whether they agree or disagree and to achieve this feat from the rest is respectable. Let me also add that the London Symphony Orchestra are the world’s first online orchestra, ever. Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra Like the London Symphony Orchestra, the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra is one of the world’s best orchestra there is.
The RCO have been around longer than LSO. The Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra was established in 1888. This year, they are celebrating their 125th anniversary. The RCO is the only orchestra to complete a world tour to six continents in one year. The RCO has over 100 players and consists of similar instruments like the LSO. They have the first & second violins, viola, cello, double bass, flute, oboe, clarinet, bassoon, French horn, trumpet, trombone, harp, percussion, and the timpani. I wasn’t aware a harp could be part of a symphony because I didn’t even think about the possibility of it.
This orchestra, as well, has achieved great feats such as launching their own in-house label, many performance recordings. I admire the cooperation all the members of the orchestra give in order to perform amazing concerts through flawless playing. The orchestra’s execution of any piece is very harmonizing and pleasing to hear! HISTORY http://www. oocities. org/vienna/strasse/8128/history. html http://www. bsmny. org/exploring-music/features/iid/oboe/ http://www. oboes. com/oboehistory. html http://www. makingmusicfun. net/htm/f_mmf_music_library/hey-kids-its-an-oboe. tm http://en. wikipedia. org/wiki/Oboe I know I was supposed to research two, but I felt that each site was slightly lacking just a bit of the information I desired. I chose these sites in order to get a better understanding of this instrument I never even heard of until this class. I especially chose the site “http://www. makingmusicfun. net/htm/f_mmf_music_library/hey-kids-its-an-oboe. htm” because in allowed to me to understand better in a direct way of what the oboe’s history, construction, and other information without beating around the bush.
They also explain it in a way so while you are reading along you get the full understanding at once. I know that Wikipedia isn’t really a source I should go to, but I felt that the information upload wasn’t wrongly messed with and it had a lot of information the other sites didn’t contain. MANUFACTURERS / MAKERS http://www. oboes. com/oboehistory. html http://www. oboesforidgets. com/brands. htm These two sites were tricky to find. Since I was clueless about oboes from the start, I really had no ideas if the makers listed were in fact correct.
Everything reading one article I was able to confirm that the makers were truly reputable. I also didn’t expect the prices for oboes to be such expensive instrument pieces. I just want to point out what instrument does Yamaha not make?! FAMOUS PERFORMERS http://www. classicalwinds. com/page1/page2/Alessandro-Besozzi. html http://books. google. com/books? id=mUEAR9mWEWwC&pg=PA79&lpg=PA79&dq=Giuseppe+Besozzi&hl=en#v=onepage&q=Giuseppe%20Besozzi&f=false http://www. nytimes. com/1994/10/19/arts/in-performance-music-575879. tml http://www. schott-music. com/shop/persons/featured/9042/ http://bretpimentel. com/woodwinds/oboe/people/ There was literally an infinite list of performers that I just couldn’t decide on. I need the help of wiki’s list of oboist http://en. wikipedia. org/wiki/List_of_oboists. I found one site “http://bretpimentel. com/woodwinds/oboe/people/” that listed the Besozzi Family. It was interesting to find that for a while, the line of Besozzi’s all decided to accept the oboist path and continue what the family became renown for.
I was also lucky enough to find a New York Times article on Heinz Holliger written in the 1990s! Keeping archived articles on the website really let me know how famous this guy really was. FAMOUS COMPOSERS http://www. bach-cantatas. com/Lib/Marcello-Benedetto. htm http://www. bach-cantatas. com/Lib/Marcello-Alessandro. htm http://www. youtube. com/watch? v=X-u4mAI1zeg http://en. wikipedia. org/wiki/Oboe_Concerto_(Mozart) After listening to the excerpt on www. connect4education. org I decided on my first composer, who is Benedetto Marcello.
While researching about Benedetto I came across that he had a brother who also contributed to the music industry and wasn’t able to make it big. I also discovered Mozart’s Oboe Concerto. As a former piano player, I only knew Mozart to make piano scores not musical piece for other instruments. A lot of sites didn’t really have much information on these guys except the sites I listed above which offered a thorough biography of the chosen ones. REPERTOIRE http://www. classicsonline. com/catalogue/product. aspx? pid=3290 http://www. arkivmusic. com/classical/album. jsp? album_id=202663 At first I
