Two English Oboe Quintets: Bax and Bliss Oboe Quintets - Bert Locarelli, Manhattan String Quartet

BLISS: The Oboe Quintet owed its existence to an invitation from that great patron of chamber music, Mrs. Elizabeth Sprague Coolidge, who wanted a new work for Leon Goossens to play at one of her International Festivals. The first performance took place in Venice in September, 1927, with Leon Goossens and the Venetian String Quartet. I particularly recall the pleasure of the rehearsals which took place on the Lido and to which we went by gondola from our hotel in Venice...BAX: The Quintet for Oboe and Strings was composed in 1923. There is a constant melodic flow about the work, the texture and harmony of which seem to grow one from the other. The thematic content of the first movement, in fact, grows out of the opening melodic and rhythmic ideas, first played by the string quartet, then as a kind of cadenza played by the oboe. The second movement, is almost the musical equivalent of the long Irish [or Gaelic] heroic ballads Bax was so fond of. The last movement is in the nature of an Irish reel, in the middle of which Bax introduces, [as a countermelody], what appears to be a bona-fide folk-song. The rhythmic and melodic counterpoint in most of this fine movement gives it a vitality and purposefulness not often encountered in present-day compositions.