Music for Oboe and English Horn

As with most solo instruments, such as the piano or violin--which have the bulk repertory in one period (late classicism and 19th century) --the oboe finds its most prolific and perhaps beautiful repertory in one point in history--the Baroque. No one seems to know for certain why oboe through did not continue its "rein of terror" the Classical period and on into the 19th century, but there was a theory of mine which I've seen reprinted in articles and used in doctoral theses which I now feel was mistaken: Namely, that because the instrument went through numerous changes in the construction of key work inspired by the work of flautist Theobald Bohm, clarinetists Louis Buffet, H. Klose, the instrument maker Guilaume Triebert in England and France around  1844, there were few if any virtuosos to perform the kind of repertory that would make solo writing interesting.

Further study has proven to the contrary. Celebrated oboists, such Ramm, famous for whom Mozart wrote the famous quartet, K. 370, Johann Christian Fischer (1733-1800), Apollon Marie-Rose Barret (1804-1879), and more recently Leon Goossens to name but a few, have always been present on the landscape of Western music, and have commissioned new music to fill their needs and exercise their talents. The history of the oboe repertory is a seamless one filled with extraordinary soloists, virtuoso orchestral players and teachers who either themselves wrote or inspired an incredible monument of music. I submit that possibly the reasons the late Classical and Romantic period yields only the few notable gems (such as the Mozart quartet and concerto, and the Schumann Romances) by the more famous masters of that period, is that composers became more engrossed with investigating and developing the possibilities of the newer instruments such as the pianoforte and clarinet, and exploiting the spectacular, innovative, and almost outrageous violin techniques being developed by Pagannini, Sarasate, and others. At any rate, a repertory that boasts concertos, sonatas, and chamber music by such composers by as Mozart, Beethoven, Strauss, Vaughan-Williams, Martinu, Bellini, Saint-Saens, Britten, and Poulenc, not to mention an overflowing treasure of chest of Baroque music, and a barrel of virtuoso vehicles, the "stuff" that fills in can hardly be repertory solo instrument, called of any "meager".

In adolescent musical America, legendary oboists such as Bruno Labate, Fernand Gillet, Josef Marx, Marcel Tabuteau, John Delancey, Gomberg brothers, and Robert Bloom have all the caused new and important works to be created. As America ripens into maturity as a musical entity it is my belief that the tradition will continue.