UNIVERSITY OF CINCINNATI
DATE: May 23, 2003
I, Leanna Booze , hereby submit this as part of the requirements for the degree of:
Doctor of Musical Arts in: Oboe Performance It is entitled: The Overlooked Repertory: Twentieth-Century French Oboe Etudes
Approved by: Mark Ostoich William Winstead Lizabeth Wing
THE OVERLOOKED REPERTORY: TWENTIETH-CENTURY FRENCH OBOE ETUDES
A thesis submitted to the
Division of Research and Advanced Studies of the University of Cincinnati
in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of
DOCTOR OF MUSICAL ARTS
in the Division of Performance Studies of the College-Conservatory of Music
2003
by
Leanna Booze
B.M., Vanderbilt University, 1997 M.M., San Francisco Conservatory of Music, 1999
Committee Chair: Dr. Mark S. Ostoich
ABSTRACT
At one time or another, every collegiate oboe student has toted the thick, yellow Barret
Oboe Method, the bible of oboe study, to his or her lesson. Surveys of teachers in the United
States reveal that this is the most commonly used etude book, even though it was first published in 1850 for an oboe with key work different than our modern one. Barret’s Oboe Method is part
of a tradition of pedagogical materials that have been generated by oboe professors and students
at the Paris Conservatory. When oboists travelled from Europe to fill positions in U.S.
Orchestras in the early twentieth-century, this etude tradition was transplanted but did not grow,
even though it continued in France. Because teachers in the United States lost touch with
twentieth-century French etude output, these valuable studies never became a part of mainstream
American pedagogy. If American teachers continue to rely heavily on the nineteenth-century
etudes that were passed down to them, then potentially valuable twentieth-century etudes could
be lost to future students.
In order to avoid such a calamity, I have made the case for resuscitating these overlooked
gems. Chapter One provides a brief history of the etude tradition in France from the seventeenth
through the nineteenth centuries. Seventeenth- and eighteenth-century tutors cater to an amateur
audience with collections of simple tunes. Nineteenth-century methods and etudes reflect a more
specialized audience with their progressive nature, and demonstrate the latest mechanical
developments of the oboe. Chapter Two traces the twentieth-century etudes that were produced
in France but not transferred to the United States. These etudes reflect developments in
twentieth-century music, and satisfy the need to equip oboists for difficult orchestral repertoire.
Chapter Three ties twentieth-century French etudes to the preparation of standard orchestral
excerpts. Many oboe students in the United States plan to seek orchestral jobs, and these
pedagogical materials may be used to prepare them for orchestral auditions. That the most prevalent etudes in use today were written for the oboe in different stages of mechanical development is troubling, and I hope to remedy this situation by exposing other options.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
I would like to thank my advisor, Dr. Mark Ostoich, and my reading committee, William
Winstead and Lizabeth Wing, for their support and assistance.
I wish to thank my family for their continued encouragement and my friends, especially Jeremy
Blanden, Amanda Roggero, Kate Bolton, and Brian Cook, for their enthusiastic support.
I am extremely grateful to Amber Cook, who served as my most valuable reader and continually offered emotional support and wise advice.
Finally, I would like to express my gratitude to my former teacher John de Lancie, who provided the inspiration for this paper.
1
CONTENTS
LIST OF FIGURES ...... 2
INTRODUCTION ...... 6
Chapter
1. HISTORICAL SKETCH OF OBOE ETUDES ...... 8
Seventeenth- and Eighteenth-Century Tutors
Nineteenth-Century Methods
Oboe Methods and Etudes at the Paris Conservatory
Conclusion
2. THE TWENTIETH-CENTURY ETUDE TRADITION ...... 36
Influence of Georges Gillet
Discontinuity in the United States
Twentieth-Century Pedagogical Materials Associated with Paris Conservatory
Conclusion
3. THE APPLICATION OF ETUDES TO ORCHESTRAL EXCERPTS . . . . 70
Rhythm
Articulation
Finger-Technique
Conclusion
CONCLUSION ...... 112
BIBLIOGRAPHY ...... 113
Appendix ...... 120
2
LIST OF FIGURES
Figure Page
1. Ravel, Le Tombeau de Couperin, movement 1 ...... 74
2. Debondue, Vingt-Cinq Études, No. 11 ...... 75
3. Debondue, Vingt-Cinq Études, No. 19 ...... 75
4. Debondue, Vingt-Cinq Études, No. 7 ...... 75
5. Debondue, Vingt-Cinq Études, No. 15 ...... 76
6. Lamorlette, Douze Études, No. 6 ...... 76
7. Debondue, Douze Études, No. 7 ...... 77
8. Debondue, Douze Études, No. 5 ...... 77
9. Ravel, Le Tombeau de Couperin, movement 1 ...... 77
10. Debondue Trente-Deux Études, No. 15 ...... 78
11. Debondue, Trente-Deux Études, No. 16 ...... 78
12. Debussy, La Mer, movement 2 ...... 78
13. Debondue, Vingt-Cinq Études, No. 11 ...... 79
14. Debondue, Vingt-Cinq Études, No. 5 ...... 80
15. Debussy, La Mer, movement 2 ...... 80
16. Loyon, Trente-Deux Études, No. 24 ...... 80
17. Ravel, Le Tombeau de Couperin, movement 2 ...... 81
18. Beethoven, Symphony No. 7, movement 1 ...... 82
19. Handel, Rinaldo, Overture ...... 82
20. Loyon, Trente-Deux Études, No. 11 ...... 82
21. Debondue, Vingt-Cinq Études, No. 12 ...... 83 3
22. Mendelssohn, Symphony No. 3, movement 2 ...... 83
23. Schubert, Symphony No. 9, movement 2 ...... 84
24. Rossini, Italian in Algiers, Overture ...... 84
25. Berlioz, The Damnation of Faust, Menuet des Follets ...... 84
26. Loyon, Trente-Deux Études, No. 21 ...... 85
27. Debondue, Trente-Deux Études, No. 11 ...... 85
28. Lamorlette, Douze Études, No. 12 ...... 85
29. Ravel, Le Tombeau de Couperin, movement 4 ...... 86
30. Beethoven, Symphony No. 3, movement 4 ...... 86
31. Stravinsky, Petroushka, Russian Dance ...... 86
32. Loyon, Trente-Deux Études, No. 29 ...... 87
33. Debondue, Trente-Deux Études, No. 9 ...... 87
34. Debondue, Douze Études, No. 10 ...... 88
35. Tchaikovsky, Symphony No. 4, movement 3 ...... 88
36. Debondue, Vingt-Cinq Études, No. 14 ...... 89
37. Lamorlette, Douze Études, No. 11 ...... 89
38. Strauss, Don Juan ...... 90
39. Rossini, Italian in Algiers, Overture ...... 90
40. Debondue, Vingt-Cinq Études, No. 2 ...... 90
41. Debondue, Vingt-Cinq Études, No. 16 ...... 91
42. Debussy, La Mer, movement 2 ...... 91
43. Rimsky-Korsakov, Scheherazade, movement 2 ...... 91
44. Rossini, Italian in Algiers, Overture ...... 91 4
45. Rossini, La Gazza Ladra, Overture ...... 92
46. Loyon, Trente-Deux Études: No. 22 ...... 92
47. Loyon, Trente-Deux Études, No. 10 ...... 92
48. Loyon, Trente-Deux Études, No. 17 ...... 93
49. Debondue, Douze Études, No. 8 ...... 93
50. Debondue, Douze Études, No. 9 ...... 93
51. Debondue, Douze Études, No. 11 ...... 94
52. Smetana, The Bartered Bride, Overture ...... 94
53. Mozart, Symphony No. 41, movement 4 ...... 94
54. Rossini, La Gazza Ladra, Overture ...... 95
55. Mendelssohn, Symphony No. 3, movement 2 ...... 95
56. Beethoven, Symphony No. 6, movement 3 ...... 95
57. Debondue, Trente-Deux Études, No. 10 ...... 96
58. Debondue, Trente-Deux Études No. 13 ...... 96
59. Lamorlette, Douze Études, No. 6 ...... 96
60. Loyon, Trente-Deux Études, No. 32 ...... 97
61. Rossini, La Scala di Seta, Overture ...... 97
62. Mendelssohn, Symphony No. 3, movement 2 ...... 98
63. Stravinsky, Petrouchka ...... 98
64. Smetana, The Bartered Bride, Overture ...... 98
65. Berlioz, The Damnation of Faust, Menuet des Follets ...... 99
66. Handel, Rinaldo, No. 29, Sinfonia ...... 99
67. Debondue, Vingt-Cinq Études, No. 24 ...... 100 5
68. Lamorlette, Douze Études, No. 12 ...... 100
69. Lamorlette, Douze Études, No. 10 ...... 101
70. Debondue, Douze Études, No. 10 ...... 101
71. Debondue, Trente-Deux Études, No. 3 ...... 102
72. Loyon, Trente-Deux Études, No. 13 ...... 102
73. Mussorgsky, Pictures at an Exhibition, Tuileries ...... 103
74. Verdi, Otello ...... 103
75. Mendelssohn, Symphony No. 3, movement 2 ...... 103
76. Debondue, Trente-Deux Études, No. 28 ...... 104
77. Debondue, Trente-Deux Études, No. 6 ...... 104
78. Debondue, Trente-Deux Études, No. 5 ...... 105
79. Debondue, Vingt-Cinq Études, No. 22 ...... 105
80. Loyon, Trente-Deux Études, No. 5 ...... 106
81. Loyon, Trente-Deux Études, No. 23 ...... 106
82. Lamorlette, Douze Études, No. 4 ...... 107
83. Strauss, Don Juan ...... 107
84. Lamorlette, Douze Études, No. 6 ...... 108
85. Loyon, Trente-Deux Études, No. 1 ...... 108
86. Lamorlette, Douze Études, No. 5 ...... 109
87. Loyon, Trente-Deux Études, No. 10 ...... 109
88. Ravel, Piano Concerto, movement 1 ...... 109
89. Lamorlette, Douze Études, No. 11 ...... 110
90. Loyon, Trente-Deux Études, No. 26 ...... 110 6
INTRODUCTION
At one time or another, every collegiate oboe student has toted the thick, yellow Barret
Oboe Method, the bible of oboe study, to his or her lesson. Surveys of teachers in the United
States reveal that this is the most commonly used etude book, even though it was first published in 1850 for an oboe with different key work than our modern one. In researching and accumulating etude books, I discovered an abundance of twentieth-century etudes that are virtually neglected by teachers and students. I began to wonder why all of these twentieth- century etudes, which are intended for our modern oboe, are passed over for older ones?
Shortly after the development of the oboe in France in the late seventeenth century, instructional books appeared. Over the next 200 years, these evolved from simple tutors to technical method books containing etudes. Since the establishment of the Paris Conservatory in
1793, oboe professors and their students have been active in generating pedagogical materials for oboe. The oboe etudes of Barret, Brod, and Gillet in particular have served as enduring teaching tools at conservatories. When oboists (mainly Gillet students) travelled from Europe to fill positions in U.S. orchestras in the early twentieth century, the etude tradition was transplanted but did not grow, even though it continued in Paris. If American teachers continue to rely so exclusively on nineteenth-century etudes that were passed down to them, potentially valuable twentieth-century etudes could remain in disuse. An understanding of twentieth-century etudes and what they offer is crucial to help complete the picture of available pedagogical materials for oboe.
Despite the appearance of numerous etudes after Gillet’s in 1909, his studies and Barret’s
1862 Oboe Method remain the most popular in the United States. Why are these twentieth century etudes not used in American teaching? I decided to research the etude repertoire that 7 was produced in France throughout the twentieth century but not transferred to the United States.
Other European countries have their own etude repertories, but that of France is particularly rich.
The Paris Conservatory’s attention to technical mastery has yielded a legacy of etudes, on which
I chose to focus.
Chapter One is a historical analysis of the etude tradition in France from the seventeenth to the late nineteenth centuries. Chapter Two traces the etudes written in France throughout the twentieth century and demonstrates the viability of some of these untapped etudes as study tools.
Gillet’s 1909 etude book was the first that was intended to prepare oboists for difficult orchestral repertoire, and later twentieth-century etude books state similar purposes. Since these etudes were designed for orchestral repertoire preparation, it seems that some of them may be helpful in preparing orchestral excerpts for auditions. Many oboe students in the United States plan to seek orchestral jobs, and these etudes may prove beneficial in this endeavor. In Chapter
Three I uncover many etudes that may be used to prepare oboists for orchestral auditions and propose a guide to the most promising ones for this purpose. That the most prevalent etudes in use today were written for the oboe in different stages of mechanical development is troubling, and I hope to remedy this situation by exposing other options.
8
CHAPTER ONE
HISTORICAL SKETCH OF OBOE ETUDES
Seventeenth- and Eighteenth-Century Tutors
The origins of contemporary oboe etudes can be found in instruction books from the three previous centuries. Shortly after the development of the oboe in France in the late seventeenth century, instructional books began to appear. These early tutors usually consisted of fingering charts and collections of simple tunes. They were aimed at beginners and amateurs, while professionals were trained through apprenticeship. The earliest tutors/fingering charts “mirror the development of technique among players, the increasing demands made by contemporary taste and composition, and the gradual changes in the instrument’s construction.”1
Despite the oboe’s French origin, the first tutors emerged in England. In fact, all existing sources from the seventeenth century are English.2 England witnessed a “vogue for small
handbooks on various instruments” which may have originated with John Playford, a publisher
and bookseller active in the mid- to late-seventeenth century.3
John Banister’s The Sprightly Companion (London, 1695) is the earliest known tutor for
oboe.4 Banister’s comments in the preface reveal that he intended his book for amateurs, that it
was written “so that any man, without the trouble or charge of a master, may, in little time, arrive
1Bruce Haynes, “Oboe Fingering Charts, 1695-1816,” Galpin Society Journal 31 (1978): 68.
2Ibid., 72.
3Eric Halfpenny, “The French Hautboy: A Technical Survey, Part I,” Galpin Society Journal (1953): 23.
4Haynes, “Oboe Fingering Charts,” 72. 9
to a perfection therein.”5 The Sprightly Companion contains a collection of marches and other
tunes “designed chiefly for the hautboy, yet proper for the flute, violin, and other instruments.”6
This suggests that oboe players at the time may have been proficient on other instruments as
well. Performing on multiple instruments was a common skill at that time. Banister himself was
known as a violinist and recorder player.7 Among his colleagues in a theatre band in England
was James Paisible, who was skilled on the instruments listed in Banister’s title, and had thirteen
instruments in his possession upon his death.8
The other two seventeenth-century English sources for oboe instruction were James
Talbot’s Oxford Christ Church Music MS (1698), and the anonymously published The Second
Book of Theatre Musick (London, 1699). The Talbot manuscript contains a fingering chart,
instrument dimensions, and general comments on oboe playing. These are not as instructive as
they are descriptive, and contain no music. The Second Book includes “…All the New French
Dances…Ayers, Song-Tunes and Dances…All of them being proper to Play on ye HAUTBOY,
A Scale is added at ye End of ye Book for such as desire to Practice on that Instrument.”9 Again, the indication that other instruments could play the music as well suggests that a wider market was being targeted.
5John Banister, The Sprightly Companion (London: Printed by J. Heptinstall, for Henry Playford, 1695), Facsimile with preface by Peter Hedrick (Columbus, OH: Early Music Facsimiles, 1987), ii.
6Ibid., i.
7David Lasocki, “The French hautboy in England, 1673-1730,” Early Music (August 1988): 346.
8The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, 2d ed., s.v. “Paisible [Peasable], James [Paisible, Jacques].”
9Halfpenny, “The French Hautboy, Part I,” 24. 10
Shortly after these English sources appeared, oboe tutors emerged in France. Freillon-
Poncein’s La Véritable Manière d’apprendre à Jouer en perfoection du Hautbois, de la Flûte et
du Flageolet was published in Paris in 1700. Freillon-Poncein intended his treatise for “those
who are not in a position to have the most skillful masters.”10 In addition to those for oboe, his
book provided instructions for the recorder and flageolet, indicating that specialization had not
yet taken place. He hoped his book would have widespread appeal:
I have omitted nothing of all that can be desired by those who make a profession of music, whether vocal or instrumental. I finish the treatise with several pieces whose design and melody I hope will not appear disagreeable.11
Jacques Hotteterre’s Principles de la Flûte Traversière, de la Flûte à Bec et du Haut-bois
was published in Paris in 1707. The flute was the more important instrument in this book, with
instructions for oboe merely included “as a supplement to the main text.”12 This likely widened
his audience, though oboists in “theatre orchestras normally doubled on other woodwinds like
recorder and, from the late 1720s, traverso [flute].”13
The next important source for oboe instruction was English. The Compleat Tutor to the
Hautboy or the Art of Playing on that Instrument Improved and Made Easy to the Meanest
Capacity by Very Plain Rules and Directions for Learners was published in London in 1715.
10J. P. Freillon-Poncein, La Véritable Manière d’apprendre à Jouer en perfoection du Hautbois, de la Flûte et du Flageolet, avec les principes de la musique pour la voix et pour toutes sortes d’instrumens (Paris: Jacques Collombat, 1700), English translation with introduction by Catherine Parsons Smith as On Playing Oboe, Recorder, and Flageolet, (Bloomington and Indianapolis: Indiana University Press, 1992), preface.
11Ibid.
12Philip Bate, The Oboe: An Outline of its History, Development, and Construction, 3d ed. (London: Ernest Benn Ltd., 1975), 38.
13Bruce Haynes, The Eloquent Oboe: A History of the Hautboy, 1640-1760 (London: Oxford University Press, 2001), 440. 11
Words in the title such as “made easy” and “very plain rules” suggest that it was intended for
amateurs.
The preceding sample gives a fairly clear picture of the contents and intended audience of
these early instruction books. Bruce Haynes points out the “superficial character of the books”
as evidenced by the fact that “contents of The Compleat Tutor to the Hautboy (ca. 1715) were repeated in seven other works appearing as late as ca.1775.”14 Regarding these early tutors: “the
contrast with later pedagogic ‘methods’ is indeed marked.”15
Over the next fifty years, tutors continued to appear, primarily from England and France.
A smaller number were produced in other countries, such as in Germany in 1738 and in Spain in
1754. Fewer were published in the mid-seventeenth century, possibly due to the rise of Italian
oboe virtuosi who transformed the oboe into a specialist’s instrument with their technical display
and dexterity. The oboe was not as appealing to the amateur musician because “it could not be
played casually or occasionally, it was not easy to begin, and it involved a troublesome reed.”16
Therefore, fewer tutors were written for oboe than for other instruments. In the eighteenth century, for example, “the quantity of chamber music published in England for the oboe between
1730 and 1770 is small in comparison to that published for harpsichord, violin or flute, the most popular amateur instruments.”17
There was an increase in instructional books in the second half of the eighteenth century.
This was likely due to the oboe’s change in construction between the Baroque and Classical eras,
14Ibid., 178.
15Halfpenny, “The French Hautboy, Part I,” 27.
16Haynes, Eloquent Oboe, 177.
17Janet K. Page, “The Hautboy in London’s Musical Life, 1730-1770,” Early Music (August 1988): 366. 12
thus the need to disseminate new fingerings. The construction of the oboe was altered to meet
changing demands, such as the need for a bigger tone to fill larger concert halls and to penetrate
the orchestra as the size of that ensemble increased.18 The oboe had only two keys until the end
of the eighteenth century, but the design of the instrument itself was changing. The classical
oboe’s “smaller bore and tone holes represent a sharp break with the past.”19 These changes
rendered fingering charts in previous tutors outdated. New tutors with updated fingerings were
published to reflect the changes in the oboe’s design.
Another explanation for the appearance of more tutors toward the end of the eighteenth
century is that the oboe’s high range increased at this time. “New fingerings for the upper notes
which appeared about 1770 reflected a basic change in technique, and probably oboe
construction.”20 In oboe repertoire of the classical era, “tessitura went higher and the upper
range extended; Mozart’s Oboe Quartet, for instance, has a mean range almost…a 4th higher than
Bach’s average for oboe obbligatos.”21 Fingering charts in tutors reflected this extension of the
range, with the uppermost note given as higher than in earlier charts. The highest note in
Freillon-Poncein’s La Véritable Manière (1700) and Hotteterre’s Principles de la Flûte (1707)
was d′′′, but by the 1780s, f′′′ was common to fingering charts.22
18Michel Piguet, “The Baroque Oboe,” To the World’s Oboists 2, no. 3 (1974), IDRS on- line,
19Bruce Haynes, “Mozart and the Oboe,” Early Music (February 1992): 43.
20Haynes, “Oboe Fingering Charts,” 80.
21Haynes, “Mozart,” 43-44.
22Haynes, “Oboe Fingering Charts,” 76-77. 13
In comparison with the classical oboe, the baroque oboe had a larger bore, which became narrower over the course of the eighteenth century.23 “This was a constant evolution,” starting with the oboes made around 1700 and continuing until about 1830, when the bore stays almost unchanged but the tone holes become larger.24 The baroque oboe required weaker air pressure than the nineteenth-century one, but “the scale of articulation [was] hence richer.”25 Also, the presence of only two keys may have been more conducive to ornamentation. Eighteenth-century tutors contained far more instructions on ornamentation and articulation than their nineteenth- century counterparts.
The Compleat Tutor for the Hautboy Containing the Best and Easiest Instructions for
Learners to Obtain a Proficiency to which is added a Choice Collection of the most Celebrated
Italian English and Scotch Tunes. Also the Favorite Rondeau perform’d at Vauxhall by Mr.
Fischer was published in London about 1770. It is believed that the famous Italian oboe virtuoso
Johann Christian Fischer contributed to its production, although “publishers must have been eager to show some connection with him for the sake of sales.”26 The Compleat Tutor showed the “first new fingering system in England since the appearance of The Second Book of Theatre
Musick more than seventy years before.”27 Then the New and Compleat Instructions for the
Oboe or Hoboy was published about 1780, containing information similar to The Compleat
23Piguet.
24Ibid.
25Ibid.
26[Johann Christian Fischer], New and Compleat Instructions for the Oboe or Hoboy (London: Longman and Broderip, ca.1780), Facsimile with preface by Peter Hedrick (Columbus, OH: Early Music Facsimiles, 1987), 3.
27Haynes, “Oboe Fingering Charts,” 75. 14
Tutor. Although both of these instruction books contain duets, most of the short pieces are
written for one oboe.
During this period the instruction books were slowly changing to a new type, one more
comprehensive and progressive in difficulty. An example of this transitional type is Amand
Vanderhagen’s Méthode Nouvelle et Raisonée Pour Le Hautbois (Paris, ca.1790). Much like previous tutors, this book came in two parts, with the first containing a fingering chart and basic instructions on oboe playing. Rather than jumping straight to popular melodies, as earlier tutors might have, Méthode Nouvelle follows with several pages of technical exercises. The entire second part of Vanderhagen’s Méthode is written in duet form, suggesting a teacher/student intention. In comparison, most of the pieces in The Compleat Tutor and New and Compleat
Instructions were for one oboe. Vanderhagen also wrote a method for the flute as well as for the clarinet, his primary instrument.
In 1792 J. Wragg published The Oboe Preceptor in London. The full title reads: The
Oboe Preceptor; or the Art of Playing the Oboe, Rendered perfectly easy to every Capacity, in which every Instruction relative to that Instrument is progressively arranged; the different modes of Fingerings fully exemplified, and the whole systematically laid down in so plain and easy a manner, as to require No Assistance from a Master. To which is added, An elegant Selection of
Favorite Airs, Song Tunes, and Duets. Also A Set of easy Preludes in the most useful keys. An important distinction in the title is “progressively arranged.” Like Vanderhagen, Wragg did not limit his pedagogical output to one book, writing a flute method as well.
Several factors caused the content of these oboe instruction books to become more specific and progressive in difficulty. The audience for them was changing from amateur players to those training to become professionals, whose performance expectations were much higher. 15
The venue for their dissemination was moving to the music conservatory, where consistent instructional materials would be prescribed. As eighteenth-century virtuosi raised the standards of oboe performance, composers responded with more difficult solo works and more prominent orchestral parts. The capacity to perform this new music required more specialized instruction books.
One of these more specialized books for oboe instruction was François-Joseph Garnier’s
Méthode Raisonnée Pour le haut-bois, published in Paris around 1800. This marks the beginning of a new kind of instruction book for oboe: the pedagogic method. The oboe methods of the nineteenth century “grew more substantial and were organized in an order of progressive difficulty…and were used for training professional musicians.”28
Nineteenth-Century Methods
In the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, “musicians were educated by family members and through apprenticeships or guilds, as well as in church schools.”29 By the end of the eighteenth century, the old system of apprenticeship was declining and public institutions were emerging for professional music training. The reasons for this change in music training include the founding of opera companies and the rise of public concerts in the eighteenth century, both of which “increased the demand for musicians beyond what family training and apprenticeship could meet.”30 Musical competition between regions of Europe also motivated the idea of training schools, as did the “shift of political and cultural authority from church and
28Haynes, Eloquent Oboe, 177.
29The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, 2d ed., s.v. “Conservatories.”
30Ibid. 16
monarchy to the state and private associations.”31 In this changing scene, a large number of
conservatories were founded between 1793 and 1850, including the Conservatiore National
supérieur de Musique et de Dance (hereafter referred to as the Paris Conservatory), which
opened in Paris in 1795.
As the structure of the music education system transformed, instrumental instruction
books reflected this change by “[growing] more substantial and [becoming] organized in an
order of progressive difficulty. They thus became ‘methods’ that methodically and
systematically developed technique.”32 In comparison, the tutors of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries “were all of the same general difficulty, …[and] non progressive.”33
Oboe fingerings were affected by changes in the size of the bore and tone holes in the eighteenth century, and by key additions in the nineteenth century. During the eighteenth century, oboes possessed only keys, for E-flat and low C. Two-keyed oboes may have been used well into the nineteenth century, since virtually all of the fingering charts published in various countries between 1775 and 1825 still show a two-keyed oboe.34 But musical values were
changing to support the conversion to a more mechanized oboe. On the two-keyed oboe, cross-
fingerings, which were necessary to produce many of the notes, gave each tonality a
characteristic sound: “flat keys [were] warmer and more covered, and sharp keys [were]
increasingly bright.”35 Additional keys eliminated the need for cross-fingerings, thus “obscured
31Ibid.
32Haynes, Eloquent Oboe, 176-77.
33Ibid, 177.
34Haynes, “Mozart,” 50.
35Robert Howe, “Historical Oboes,” The Double Reed 23, no. 4 (2000): 22.
17 differences in tone color between various tonalities…[and] as music of the nineteenth century gradually moved into extreme tonalities, homogeneity of sound became desirable.”36 New keys also improved tuning between notes and made certain notes more stable. Many of the oboe’s key additions took place with the input of Paris Conservatory professors and students during the nineteenth century.
Although reeds had been mentioned in earlier instruction books, the actual reed-making process was not documented until the methods of the nineteenth century. Seventeenth- and eighteenth-century references to the reed were often limited to discussion of its quality.37 For example, in The Sprightly Companion of 1695, John Banister stated “that with a good reed [the oboe] goes as easie [sic] and as soft as the flute.”38 Tutors avoided the topic of reed making because they were aimed at amateurs, who would have purchased reeds from an instrument maker.39 The New and Compleat Instructions for the Oboe or Hoboy suggests that this was still the case almost 100 years later. The section ‘Observations on the Hoboy and Reed’ begins:
“When you have procured an good hoboy, and also a good reed. . .”40 Garnier’s Method of the
1790s was the first to contain detailed instructions on reed making,41 and the trend continued.
One can trace the evolution of the oboe reed and its changing proportions thanks to the information provided by many nineteenth-century methods.
36Haynes, “Mozart,” 49-50.
37Bruce Haynes, “Double Reeds, 1660-1830: A Survey of Surviving Written Evidence,” Journal of the International Double Reed Society 12 (1984): 16-17.
38Banister, The Sprightly Companion, ii.
39Haynes, Eloquent Oboe, 99.
40[Fischer], New and Compleat Instructions, 5.
41The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, 2d ed., s.v. “Oboe.” 18
The content of nineteenth-century methods changed dramatically from that of tutors, revealing their audience to be conservatory oboists or those on a professional track. Not only did the music become more progressive, but also the written advice became more specific, addressing practicing and what kind of oboe to buy. Early in the nineteenth century, the instrument-maker Delusse was lauded; later, Triébert received the highest praise. Authors of methods also prescribed advice about how to practice and what to practice. Garnier included his thoughts in Chapter Nine of his Method: “To insure progress in the study of the oboe, it is necessary to begin with short, simple lessons” and that these “will offer the student the means for establishing his tone, strengthening his embouchure, breathing properly and easily, and developing well all the notes throughout this range.”42 Brod believed that embouchure was the most important aspect on which beginners should focus, and that they should learn control through the practice of slow melodies.43 Barret stated the following in his Complete Method:
The best advice I can give to the student is to practice carefully, for some hours every day, slow pieces and sustained scales: this will form the lips in the best manner and contribute greatly to improving the quality of tone.44
That nineteenth-century methods were intended for oboists seeking professional music careers is reflected in their authorship. Oboists were the primary writers of nineteenth-century oboe methods. In contrast, a wider variety of instrumentalists produced the earlier tutors.
Virtually all of the musicians who wrote the oboe instructional books of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries also wrote books for other instruments. For example, Abraham’s Méthode
42A Systematic Method for the Oboe by Francois-Joseph Garnier, ed. and trans. Peter Hedrick (Columbus, OH: Early Music Facsimiles, 1987), 11.
43Peter Hedrick, “Henri Brod’s Méthode pour le Hautbois Reconsidered,” The Consort 30 (1974): 55.
44Apollon Marie-Rose Barret, Complete Method for the Oboe (London: Jullien, 1850. 2d ed., London: Lafleur and Son, 1862), 3. 19
pour le hautbois was published ca.1780, the same year as his Méthode pour la clarinette and
Methode du bassoon.45
While some oboe methods included instructional remarks about reed making, music, and
the oboe itself, others were simply collections of etudes for the development of technique and
musicianship. During the nineteenth century, etude books that were devoid of written
instructions began to appear more frequently. Implicit in the music was the purpose of
developing technique and musicianship.
Tutors still continued to appear into the nineteenth century. Much like earlier tutors,
nineteenth-century examples were typically written for more than one instrument to increase
sales, and merely contained simple instructions and popular tunes. Many of these were
published in the United States, where specialized musical training had not yet developed. An
example is William Whitely’s The Instrumental Preceptor: Comprising Instructions for the
Clarinet, Hautboy, Flute and Bassoon. With a Variety of the Most Celebrated Airs, Marches,
Minuets, Songs, Rondeaus, Trios, Etc. This book was printed in Utica, New York, where
Whitely was an instrument maker.46 These tutors became the exception, as the study of the oboe
required more skill and time than amateurs could invest.
Oboe Methods and Etudes at the Paris Conservatory
Etudes emerged in many countries in the nineteenth century, but the Paris Conservatory
in particular served as a breeding ground for a large number of etude books. A tradition of
etudes for oboe has been associated with the Paris Conservatory since the institution’s
45Thomas E. Warner, An Annotated Bibliography of Woodwind Instruction Books, 1600- 1830 (Detroit: Information Corners, 1967), 36.
46Ibid., 80.
20
establishment in 1793. From its opening the Paris Conservatory “creat[ed] and disseminat[ed]
uniform methods of pedagogy….Both curriculum and examinations were prescribed in some
detail.”47 Within this music institution’s rigorous framework, oboe instruction books underwent
the transformation from tutors aimed at amateurs to more specialized methods. Oboe professors
and their students at the Conservatory were active in mechanical changes to the oboe. Many
method books were written to reflect the latest mechanical changes in fingering charts and teach
them through etudes.
The first Oboe Professor at the Conservatory, Antoine Sallantin, did not produce a
method, but he was probably familiar with the aforementioned instruction books to which J. C.
Fischer’s name was attached. He heard Fischer perform in Paris in the early 1770s and later
studied with him in London in the early 1790s. As was the case with many eighteenth-century
oboists, Sallantin was born into a musical family and learned to play the oboe from his father.48
He was professor from 1795 to 1816 and his pupils Garnier and Vogt produced oboe methods.
François-Joseph Garnier served as Professor at the Conservatory from 1795 to 1797, alongside his former teacher. One of the earliest examples of an oboe method was his A
Systematic Method for the Oboe, published ca.1800. This was the first oboe method to be used at the Paris Conservatory,49 and was written for an oboe with only two keys. At the beginning of
the Method, Garnier states:
47New Grove Dictionary, s.v. “Conservatories.”
48Georges A. Conrey, “The Paris Conservatory: Its Oboe Professors, Laureates (1795- 1984),” Journal of the International Double Reed Society 14 (1986): 8-9.
49A Systematic Method, ed. and trans. Peter Hedrick, v.
21
From the time when I was called to the Conservatory of Music to train students in the art of playing the oboe, I felt the necessity of having a clear and reliable method, suitable for facilitating the study of this instrument. I looked for an existing one and did not find it.50
This indicates the desire to fill an existing void, thereby beginning a new tradition.
The Method contains a wide variety of material to instruct technique and musical style.
For example, the first caprice explores many possible articulations in 2/4 meter, and the second caprice does the same in 6/8. Many of the fifty-five etudes are labeled with words such as
“Romanza” and “Minuet,” indicating the character or style to be produced. Most of the exercises throughout the Method are written in duet form, likely indicating that a teacher would play side by side with the student. In terms of tonalities, Garnier’s music is confined to three accidentals or fewer, with the exception of two selections, one of which contains four sharps and the other four flats. On the two-keyed classical oboe, for which Garnier wrote his Method, “tonalities with too many cross fingerings (i.e., those with more than four accidentals) were impractical and avoided.”51 Thus the music reflected the oboe’s capabilities at that time. All in all, the included
music is much more technical compared to the music in seventeenth-century tutors. Garnier’s
Method was clearly designed for developing technique and fluency in all available keys on the
oboe of his time. Garnier’s Method was also the first to treat the reed-making process extensively. He described gouging, shaping, and the selection of tools and cane. He even included diagrams of the tools and dimensions of the reed.52
Charles-David Lehrer points out that Garnier drew upon his experience playing in the
Paris Opéra in his Method. For example, etude No. 6 includes “one of the kinds of dance music
50Ibid., xiii.
51New Grove Dictionary, s.v. “Oboe.”
52Thomas Warner, “Two Late Eighteenth-Century Instructions for Making Double Reeds,” Galpin Society Journal 15 (1962): 27. 22
he would have played at the Opéra.”53 The use of contemporary orchestral music for
method/etude content would become a trend that carried into the twentieth century.
The conservatory’s next Oboe Professor, Gustave Vogt, produced his Méthode pour le
hautbois in the 1810s. His was the first to include a picture of an oboe with more than two keys.
To the traditional E-flat and low C keys were added F-sharp and low B-natural keys.54 In his
Méthode he describes these two additional keys as being necessary for proper intonation,55 but
Vogt and his teacher Sallantin were suspicious of further key additions. Volt made his distaste for extra keys explicit in his Méthode:
[Their] advantage is too strongly counterbalanced by the inconvenience which the keys bring, in sometimes not hermetically closing the holes over which they have been fitted…. …the other [keys] do not contribute to the perfection of intonation, and can hinder the execution, because they are located next to the finger holes of the instrument, which are so nearby each other that it is at every moment to be feared that in wishing to cover a hole, the finger might touch one of these keys, thus disturbing the air column and ruining the entire passage as a result.56
This skepticism was common among older players, who advocated key additions to improve
tuning, but overall mistrusted them and believed they would complicate technique. In contrast,
younger players saw their possibility for simplifying technique.57 Despite Vogt’s conservatism,
53 Charles-David Lehrer, “Introduction to the New Garnier Oboe Method,” September 2000, IDRS online,
54Bate, Oboe, 58.
55New Grove Dictionary, s.v. “Oboe.”
56Gustave Vogt, Méthode de Hautbois (ca.1813), 16-17; quoted in Charles David-Lehrer, “An Introduction to the 16 Oboe Concertos of Gustave Vogt and a Discussion of the Nineteenth Century Performance Practices Preserved Within Them,” Journal of the International Double Reed Society 16 (1988): 24.
57Robert Howe, “Historical Oboes 2: Development of the French Simple System Oboe 1800-1840,” The Double Reed 24, no. 1 (2001): 61. 23 he played on a seven-keyed oboe by 1825,58 and many of his students were active in the key additions taking place over the course of the nineteenth century.
Vogt was Associate Professor of Oboe at the Paris Conservatory from 1802 to 1816 and full Professor from 1816 to 1853. During his long tenure he generated a line of pupils who were involved in mechanical improvements and the writing of methods to teach them. Pupils of Vogt who were proponents of adding keys to the oboe included Auguste Vény, Henri Brod, A.M.R.
Barret, Stanislas Verroust, and Charles-Louis Triébert. The last two served as professors at the
Conservatory after Vogt retired.
Auguste Vény’s Méthode abrégée pour le hautbois (ca.1828) describes a seven-keyed oboe. Veny never served as a major professor of oboe at the Conservatory, but he led a preparatory class from 1839 to 1844. Between 1844 and 1855 a new edition of his Méthode was published for oboes with eight to fifteen keys, with fingering charts for oboes with newer key systems. The practice of reprinting methods with updated fingering charts was a common occurrence, as it had been with eighteenth-century tutors.
Authors used methods to express their opinions, and the addition of key was a point of contention. Whereas Vogt had described additional keys as being unreliable and an
“inconvenience” to technique, Vény stated the following in his Méthode (ca.1828): “The
[traditional two-keyed] oboe is a defective wind instrument; it uses irrational fingerings, uneven tones, and cannot be played in all the keys.”59 Henri Brod prescribed this advice in his Méthode
(ca. 1826): “when buying a first instrument the beginner…must get [one] provided with all the
58New Grove Dictionary, s.v. “Oboe.”
59Louis-Auguste Vény, Méthode abrégée pour le hautbois, (ca.1828), 30, quoted in Bruce Haynes, “The Addition of Keys to the Oboe, 1790-1830,” Journal of the International Double Reed Society 22 (1994): 33. 24
keys.”60 By mid-century, mechanical additions were accepted, but the choice of key system was
debatable. In his 1862 method, Barret stated that his system “possess[ed] all the good qualities
of the systems preceding it, without their disadvantages.”61
Henri Brod completed his study with Vogt at the Paris Conservatory in 1818. He played second oboe to Vogt in the Paris Opéra orchestra from 1819 to 1839.62 Brod’s two-part Méthode
pour le hautbois illustrates an oboe with eight keys.63 The first part of his Méthode was
published ca.1826 and includes instructional comments about the fundamentals of oboe
playing.64 It also contains technical exercises, such as scales and articulation studies, and forty
short progressive studies. As the word “progressive” suggests, these increase in difficulty, with
the latter ones exploring tonalities with more sharps and flats, although never going beyond four
accidentals. The second part of his Méthode was published in 1830, along with a reprint of the
first part. In the second part, Brod describes some of his own innovations to the oboe’s
construction, which primarily involved key additions.65 Brod had obtained the tools of Delusse,
a woodwind instrument-maker, and began to make his own oboes and carry out mechanical
experiments.66 Brod claimed that he devised the ‘half-hole’ plate, a pierced plate for the left
60Howe, “Historical Oboes 2,” 61.
61Barret, Complete Method, ii.
62The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, 2d ed., s.v. “Brod, Henri.”
63Bate, Oboe, 59.
64Hedrick, “Brod’s Méthode Reconsidered,” 55.
65Ibid., 60.
66Bate, Oboe, 59.
25
forefinger, so that the player no longer had to half-close the hole itself, which could be executed
inaccurately. He may have also been the first oboe-maker in France to add octave keys.67
Brod’s Méthode also demonstrates one of the first uses of an oboe method to defend national styles. By the early nineteenth century, a style distinction existed between countries, and “two entirely different ideals of oboe tone were being pursued,” primarily between France and Germany.68 Brod praised the French style of reed making. In describing the differences in
reed making between countries, he stated the following:
The Italians, the Germans, and in general almost all foreigners make them stronger than us. Therefore they have a hard sound, which misses the essential nature of the instrument, and makes their playing so painful that it becomes tiring for the listeners. The quality of sound which is obtained from the oboe in France is indisputably the finest.69
Brod also attested to France’s superiority in instrument making, claiming that “The best oboes are made in Paris at Triébert’s.”70
Whereas exercises in Garnier’s method were written for two oboes, Brod composed his
for oboe and bass accompaniment, thereby treating the oboe more as a soloist. This reflected the
oboe’s changing role in the orchestra, which had become more soloistic in the nearly thirty years
that transpired between the publications of these methods.
Brod concluded his method with “Airs Romances et Solos, tires des meillieurs Auteurs.”
This collection of pieces included several excerpts from opera overtures and ballet that Brod
67New Grove Dictionary, s.v. “Brod.”
68Bate, Oboe, 57.
69Henri Brod, Méthode de Hautbois (ca.1826), quoted in Howe, “Historical Oboes 2,” 65.
70Henri Brod, Méthode de Hautbois (ca.1826), quoted in Howe, Historical Oboes 3: The First Mechanized Oboes: Triébert’s Systemes 3 and 4,” The Double Reed 24, no. 2 (2001): 17. 26
would likely have performed while oboist in the orchestra of the Paris Opéra.71 The placement
of these excerpts at the end of the method suggests that the skills acquired through its study
should be applied to music that would be performed in the “real world.” Brod’s method is the
first example of incorporating actual excerpts into an oboe method for the purpose of study. This
trend continued and, in the twentieth century, including excerpts within etudes was
commonplace.
Another interesting feature of Brod’s method is his division of scales into three levels: 1)
principal major and minor keys; 2) keys less frequently used; and 3) keys rarely used but which
must be practiced, nevertheless.72 Brod employed the “rarely used” keys only twice, and both
examples are found in the second part of the method: the second movement of the “Fourth
Sonata” is in B major, and the tenth etude is in D-flat major. Whereas Garnier’s use of more
than three sharps or three flats was rare, Brod included pieces with four accidentals more
frequently, revealing the oboe’s increased chromatic capabilities. Many improvements had
obviously taken place between Garnier’s two-keyed oboe of the 1790s and Brod’s eight-keyed
instrument three decades later.
Stanislas Verroust was a student of Vogt, and succeeded him as Professor of Oboe from
1853 to 1863. Verroust was known to have used a nine-keyed oboe.73 His Méthode pour le
hautbois, d’après Joseph Sellner, op.68, was published in 1857. His 24 Etudes mélodiques, op.
65 were published before this date, according to the opus number. The 24 Etudes mélodiques
71Charles-David Lehrer, “Introduction to the New Brod Oboe Method,” November 1999, IDRS online,
72Henri Brod, Méthode de Hautbois. Edition revue par G. Gillet pour servir à l’étude du Hautbois modifié tel qu’il ets adapté dans les Conservatories (Paris: Henry Lemoine, 1963), 7- 10. 73Howe, “Historical Oboes 2,” 61. 27 consist of just that—twenty-four melodic etudes in different keys. The lack of instructional material classifies this book as a new type—the etude book without written instructions. Despite the absence of technical remarks, the purpose of the etudes is implicit. Each provides practice for a different key area, which is stated before each etude. For example, the first etude is preceded by the words “Key of C Major.” The first volume contains etudes in parallel major and minor keys, and the second in relative major and minor keys.
By this time, oboes had acquired an additional seven or more keys over the traditional two keys of the eighteenth century. An oboe with added keys “had advantages over the two- keyed oboe: alternatives to cross fingerings, improved intonation of certain notes, and had a complete chromatic scale.” This oboe was called a ‘simple system’ oboe—which was “an oboe based on the two-keyed one, with keys added in a more or less standardized manner.”74
Charles-Louis Triébert was another student of Vogt who advocated key additions. The
Triébert family (Guillaume and his two sons, Charles-Louis and Frederic) were involved with oboe construction in nineteenth-century France, “making changes in bore, tone hole proportion, and key work,”75 and they worked in collaboration with the Paris Conservatory’s professors and students to improve the instrument. Under their influence “the oboe passed from a period of piecemeal additions to one of organized development.”76 From 1840 to 1875:
The firm introduced 6 “systèmes” of oboe key work. These were the Système 3, introduced in 1840; the Système 4 of 1843; the Système 5 (thumb plate system) of 1849; Charles-Louis Triébert’s revision of the Boehm oboe, and the Barret Système, both introduced in 1855; and Frederic Triebert’s Système 6 of 1875.77
74Ibid., 70.
75David John Ernest, “An Analysis of the French Style of Woodwind Performance,” (Ph.D. diss., University of Colorado, 1961), 23.
76Oxford Dictionary of Music, s.v. “Oboe.”
77Howe, “Historical Oboes 2,” 66. 28
Many of these systems can be tied to the appearance of an oboe method.
The Triébert firm became the leading manufacturer of oboes in nineteenth-century Paris,
overtaking the popularity of Delusse, and methods provided good advertising for the firm.
Whereas Garnier pictured an oboe in his Method (ca.1800) modeled after one of Delusse’s, “an implied recommendation,”78 Brod wrote in the first part of his Méthode (ca.1826) that “The best
oboes are made in Paris at Triébert’s.”79 In the second edition of his Oboe Method (1862),
Barret stated:
It would be unjust not to mention the part taken by Mons Triébert in the construction of this Oboe; both in regard to the ingenuity, as well as solidity of mechanism, elegance and finish, it leaves nothing to be desired, and places Mons Triébert at the head of this branch of wind instrument manufacturers.80
These acclamations were good advertising for the Triébert firm, particularly in Barret’s Method, which was popular outside of France.
Charles-Louis Triébert was more involved with his career as a performer and composer than with the family business. Although he did not produce a method, he “compiled fingering charts for oboes with ten and fifteen keys.”81 He preferred the ‘système 4,’ which is often
referred to as the ‘Système Charles Triébert’ because he advocated its use at the Conservatory
during his Professorship from 1863 to 1867. To the basic key system already in place by about
1840, ‘système 4’ added a low B-flat key, a C-D trill key, and improved the efficiency of the
keys operated by the left-hand little finger.
78Warner, “Two Late Eighteenth-Century Instructions,” 26.
79Brod, Méthode de Hautbois, quoted in Howe, “Historical Oboes 3,” 17.
80Barret, Complete Method, ii.
81The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, 2d ed., s.v. “Triébert.” 29
A reprint of Brod’s Méthode after 1843 exists in which the original fingering chart “has been removed and replaced by a folding plate entitled Tablature de hautbois à 15 clefs. Nouveau système de Charles Triébert, published ca. 1860.”82 Based on the publication year of 1860, this probably referred to Triébert’s ‘système 5,’ introduced in 1849. Brod’s Méthode was reprinted with an updated fingering chart, just as Vény’s had been.
Another student of Vogt, A.M.R. Barret, adopted the ‘système 4’ and produced the first edition of his Oboe Method for it in 1850. Barret was particularly involved with mechanical experiments in collaboration with Frederic Triébert, who constructed the oboe for which Barret published a second edition of his Oboe Method in 1862. This oboe is called the ‘Barret système’ and was introduced by the Triébert firm in 1855.83 Barret’s Oboe Method contained a fingering chart of this new design, along with a fingering chart for Triébert’s ‘système 4’ oboe. Both picture oboes without the typical half-hole pierced plate for the left-hand first finger. The reason for the absence of this special key can be found in the preface, where Barret revealed that one of his goals aims was “to do away with the half hole and the factitious fingerings of the old system.”84
Barret described his other mechanical additions and refinements in the preface to the second edition:
Since the publication of the first edition of this work, my attention has been directed towards the further improvement of the mechanism of the oboe, and I have succeeded I believe, in forming a new combination of the keys, which work easier than before and give greater facility to the performer, without materially interfering with the old system of fingering.85
82Hedrick, “Henri Brod’s Méthode,” 53-55.
83Howe, “Historical Oboes 2,” 66.
84Barret, Complete Method, ii.
85Ibid. 30
In addition to simplifying fingerings, he improved the intonation of trills and added a thumb-
plate mechanism.86 The thumb-plate was a device activated by the left thumb to control the
opening of the B-flat and C keys. Although he was definitely involved with experiments in the
design and mechanics of the oboe, it is unclear to what extent Barret is solely responsible for
these latest improvements. In the preface Barret credits Triébert for constructing the oboe that
incorporated these changes. The oboe described in Barret’s Method closely resembles the
Triébert ‘système 5’ oboe, which also contained a thumb-plate, and records show that Triébert
obtained a patent for it in 1849.87 Barret did modify the thumb-plate for his 1862 Method,
changing the way the B-flat and C keys were released, and his version of the mechanism is
sometimes referred to as the “Barret action.” Philip Bate argues that this “is the only mechanism
to which Barret’s name should properly be applied.”88
Like Brod, Barret kept orchestral music in mind. After presenting the fingering chart for
his new oboe system and explaining the changes, Barret included passages in order to
demonstrate the capabilities of the new system. He revealed his source: “Many of these passages
I have found in fragments of orchestral music and ‘musique d’ensemble.’”89
Barret intended his Method to be a thorough introduction to music in general as well as the oboe. It begins with a section entitled “Principles of Music.” The next part of the Method
describes the particulars of oboe playing. In keeping with tradition, Barret’s Method included
advice on fundamentals such as breathing, holding the instrument, and how to practice. His
86The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, 2d ed., s.v. “Barret.”
87Bate, Oboe, 65.
88Ibid., 68.
89Barret, Complete Method, 15. 31
section on reed making includes detailed written instructions with a corresponding diagram of
the requisite equipment.
Several other nineteenth-century Parisian publications reveal an intention to update
fingering systems. Pedro Soler’s Tablature du nouveau système de hautbois à anneaux mobiles was published around 1850. The title specifies movable rings, which likely referred to the
‘système 4’ oboe of 1843, which possessed three of them. Victor Bretonnière, who had reprinted
Veny’s Méthode in the 1850s to update its fingerings, also produced a method in 1867 entitled
Nouvelle méthode de hautbois renfermant la tablature de l’instrument dans les tons les plus usités, op. 400. V. Chalon’s Méthode de hautbois ordinaire et à système Boehm was published in 1877. The Boehm system to which the title refers may have been Triébert’s revision of the
Boehm system, introduced in the 1850s, or that of another instrument maker such as Buffet, who applied that system.90 Emile Coyon’s Tablature du hautbois, 16 clefs 2 anneaux de fa# main
droit et le plateau du pouce de la main gauche was published ca. 1880-83. The reference to the
thumb-plate of the left hand indicates that this was intended for Triébert’s ‘système 5,’ the only
system with that feature aside from Barret’s system.
In addition to the oboe method, another type of pedagogical material for oboe that
surfaced in the nineteenth century was the etude book. Books of etudes for pedagogical use had
originated for keyboard instruments in the seventeenth century.91 The etude books for oboe that
began to appear were for the development of technique and musicianship. Although the methods
previously discussed had this aim as well, their appearances can be expressly tied to the latest
mechanical developments. Also, etudes alone usually do not spawn successive editions, whereas
90Ibid., 71.
91The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, 2d ed., s.v. “Study.” 32
Brod and Barret each released new editions of their methods to reflect the latest mechanical
developments.
A common way to create a book of etudes was to transcribe the works of another. Some
nineteenth-century examples are the 25 Grandes Études de Hugot, op.13, transcribed for oboe by
Antoine Bruyant, and Edouard Sabon’s Twelve Études d’après Bochsa. Sabon’s connection to
the Conservatory was unascertainable. His Twelve Études d’après Bochsa was published in
1880. Bochsa was a French harpist known for his virtuoso technical exercises for that
instrument. Each of Sabon’s twelve studies was preceded by a scale in the key of that particular
study. Key areas remain conservative in the number of sharps and flats, only exceeding three in
a few instances, such as No.12, which has a key signature of six flats.
Bruyant was a student of Vogt at the Paris Conservatory in the 1840s. For his book of
etudes he transcribed the 25 Grandes Études, op.13 of Antoine Hugot, who was a French flautist
and teacher at the Paris Conservatory from 1705 to 1803. Bruyant preceded Hugot’s etudes with
major and chromatic scales, arpeggios, and trill studies. The etudes resemble extended little
pieces. Most are in two parts, with the first half repeated and ending in the dominant key. Of the
twenty-five etudes, only three have key signatures of as many as four sharps or flats. Despite the
somewhat conservative tonalities of the etudes themselves, Bruyant recommended familiarizing
oneself with the most difficult keys, such as B major, D-flat major, and F-sharp major.92
In 1881 Georges Gillet became the next Oboe Professor at the Conservatory, and adopted
the Triébert ‘système 6’ as the official oboe of the Paris Conservatory.93 Among other improvements, the ‘système 6’ abolished the thumb-plate which Barret’s oboe had possessed.
92A. Bruyant, 25 Grandes Études de Hugot, op. 13 (Paris: Billaudot, n.d.), 7.
93New Grove Dictionary, “Oboe.”
33
Gillet revised Brod’s Méthode in 1890, “expunging many items in the verbal treatise which came to be obsolete, and retaining the music with various editorial additions.”94 The editor’s notes at the beginning of the revised method state the necessity of virtuosos reviewing old methods to
“put them in keeping with the new mechanism.”95 It mentions the new oboe adopted at the conservatoire, the ‘système 6,’ stating that “This edition would be, so to speak, without purpose, if one had not added to the Méthode the elements that demand the study of the new oboe such as it is adopted to the Conservatoire.”96 Gillet decided that Brod’s “24 Airs Romances and Solos” were not redeemable, probably because the pieces from which they were excerpted were no longer part of the standard opera repertory. Also, they were not as challenging as the pieces
Gillet was playing at the time. As the editor put it, “they were completely old-fashioned and did not offer any more interest”!97 Gillet was to have a tremendous impact on subsequent generations of oboists in Europe and in the United States, and his true contribution to oboe pedagogy was yet to come.
After Frederic Triébert’s death in 1867, the family firm changed hands several times before Francois Lorée took over the firm in 1881. Lorée worked closely with Georges Gillet to develop what was called the ‘Gillet model’ (1906). It was for this model that Gillet wrote his etudes in the next century.
94Hedrick, “Brod’s Méthode Reconsidered,” 53.
95Henri Brod, Méthode de Hautbois (Paris: Henry Lemoine, 1890), i.
96Ibid.
97Ibid. 34
Conclusion
Nineteenth-century methods were intended for a wider audience of oboists undertaking a thorough and systematic study of the oboe under the guidance of teachers. Many seventeenth- and eighteenth-century tutors advertised themselves as being “plain and easy instructions.” The contrast can be seen in the titles of nineteenth-century methods such as Garnier’s A Systematic
Method for the Oboe and Barret’s A Complete Method for the Oboe,…with an Explicit Method of
Reed Making. Earlier tutors were aimed at oboists without the assistance of a teacher, such as
Wragg’s The Oboe Preceptor, whose title contained the announcement that “no assistance from a master” was necessary. Authors of nineteenth-century methods were not hesitant to mention the need for a teacher. In the beginning of his Method, Garnier revealed his intended audience to be the serious student and teacher:
I hope that my efforts in smoothing over the difficulties [the oboe] presents to beginners will be as agreeable to performers who teach the art of playing the oboe as they will be useful to the students who study with them.98
Brod stated in his method that “beginners should play on their teachers’ reeds for some time in order to learn what constitutes a good reed.”99 Barret’s method was clearly not intended for casual players, but ones undertaking serious study of the oboe. He even gave advice to performers in orchestras:
With regard to orchestral performances I must make a few remarks. When a solo has to be performed, and the accompaniment is sufficiently subdued to allow the solo instrument scope, the soloist must use largely every means in his power to produce effect, and to predominate over the orchestra….100
98A Systematic Method, ed. and trans. Peter Hedrick, xiii.
99Hedrick, “Brod’s Méthode Reconsidered,” 55.
100Barret, Complete Method, 8.
35
Nineteenth-century methods reflected the key additions that took place as the oboe
became mechanized. Oboe fingerings were affected by changes in the size of the bore and tone
holes in the seventeenth century, and by key additions in the eighteenth century. As the oboe
was adapted to meet the changing demands of composers and performers, methods followed
close behind to teach the latest key additions.
By the end of the nineteenth century, pedagogical materials for oboe included methods
and etude books with no instructional or technical remarks, just music. Their didactic aim was
apparent from other material included with the etudes. Bruyant began his etude book with scales
and technical exercises, and Sabon preceded each of his etudes with a scale in the corresponding
key. These did not need to explain the latest key additions since the oboe changed little after the
introduction of Triébert’s ‘système 6’ in 1875. Improvements were made, but all in all “there
[have] been no major changes in the French professional oboe since 1875.”101 These nineteenth- century etude books would occupy a central place in oboe pedagogical materials in the twentieth century.
101Howe, “Historical Oboes 3,” 18. 36
CHAPTER TWO
THE TWENTIETH-CENTURY ETUDE TRADITION
Influence of Georges Gillet
Nineteenth-century methods reflected the latest mechanical changes to the oboe, and etude books trained players to have the requisite technique and musicianship for nineteenth- century music. By the end of the nineteenth century, composers were writing parts for oboe with technical demands never before seen. Since the expansion of oboe technique was affected by the demands of performers and composers, the increase in difficulty of orchestral music at the end of the nineteenth century gave rise to the need for more challenging etude books. This inspired
Georges Gillet, professor at the Paris Conservatory from 1881 to 1919, to complete mechanization of the oboe, and to write an etude book to teach these changes and train students to meet the increased demands of the music. Gillet had studied at the Paris Conservatory under
Félix Charles Berthélemy and Charles Joseph Colin, receiving first prize in 1869. When Colin died suddenly in 1881, Gillet was chosen to replace him as Professor of Oboe.
Gillet collaborated with Francois Lorée, who had taken over the Triébert firm in 1881, to make improvements to the oboe. Alfred Barthel, one of Gillet’s students, explained Gillet’s contributions to the development of the oboe:
Credit must be given to Georges Gillet for the latest improvement on the Conservatory system of oboe—the covered finger holes, easier technic [sic] and improvement in the mechanism that gives the possibility of playing every trill in time. To exemplify the everlasting work of Gillet on the modern oboe, how many know that the little key on the lower joint for the trill of C and D-flat is the outcome of a one-time impossible figure in the opera “Le Roi d’Ys” of E. Lalo?1
1Laila Storch, “Georges Gillet: Master Performer and Teacher.” The Double Reed 19, no.3 (1996): 27. 37
Gillet worked with the Lorée firm to complete the Conservatory system No. 6 oboe, which was
introduced in 1906. It was also called the “plateaux model” due to the fact that plateau, or
pierced keys, now covered all the finger holes. These assisted trilling and encouraged a darker
tone.2
It was for this new oboe model that Gillet wrote his etude book Études pour
L’Enseignement supérieur du Hautbois, which was published in 1909. In the preface he stated
his incentive: “New studies, more in keeping with the innumerable difficulties that are
encountered in our symphonic concerts and theaters, were imperatively needed by pupils
desirous of perfecting their art.”3 The etudes are preceded by thirty-five pages of major and
minor scales in various articulation patterns. These are followed by several pages of interval
studies and chromatic scales, also presented in a variety of articulations.4 On the subject of
scales, Gillet commented that “It is impossible to obtain a perfect mechanism without their help,
and their daily execution is indispensable . . . [They are] the supreme source of the perfect
oboist.”5 Interestingly, the scales and intervals are omitted in the 1938 version. This version,
which lacks what Gillet deemed so crucial, is the one known by oboists in the United States.
As the oboe essentially reached its present-day form at the beginning of the twentieth
century, oboe methods no longer needed to introduce the latest mechanisms. The method and
etude tradition continued throughout the twentieth century, however:
2The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, 2d ed., s.v. “Oboe.”
3Georges Gillet, Études pour L’Enseignement supérieur du Hautbois (Paris: Leduc, 1909), 2.
4Laila Storch, “The Georges Gillet Etudes: A Little-Known Early Edition,” The Double Reed 8, no.2 (1985): 34.
5Ibid. 38
Nineteenth-century etudes, divorced from their obsolete accompanying technical remarks… [were] supplemented by etudes of ever-increasing technical difficulty by such French oboist-composers as Louis Bleuzet, Albert Debondue, and Roland Lamorlette.6
These men happen to be three Gillet students who remained in France and continued the etude
tradition there. Many other Gillet students left France, leaving behind also the etude-writing
tradition.
Discontinuity in the United States
Gillet was important not only for improving the oboe and for composing an etude book, but for producing a long line of brilliant pupils. During his tenure at the Paris Conservatory from
1881 to 1919, many orchestras in the United States were founded, such as the Boston Symphony in 1881, the Chicago Symphony in 1891, and the Philadelphia Orchestra in 1900.7 A number of
Gillet’s students left France to fill positions in these orchestras. Some of these include Georges
Longy, principal oboe of the Boston Symphony Orchestra from 1898 to 1925; Alfred Barthel,
principal oboe of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra from 1903 to 1929; Marcel Tabuteau,
principal oboe of the Philadelphia Orchestra from 1915 to 1954; Alexandre Duvoir, principal
oboe of the Minneapolis Symphony Orchestra from 1920 to 1938; and Fernand Gillet, Georges
Gillet’s nephew, principal oboe of the Boston Symphony Orchestra from 1925 to 1946. Most of
these players also did a great deal of teaching.8 They brought with them the etudes associated
with the Paris Conservatory at the time, but did not write their own etudes. In contrast,
professors and students at the Paris Conservatory continued to write new etudes throughout the
twentieth century.
6New Grove Dictionary, 2d ed., s.v. “Oboe.”
7The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, 2d ed., s.v. “Orchestra.”
8Storch, “Georges Gillet: Master Performer and Teacher,” 32. 39
Gillet held an oboe class at the Paris Conservatory that met three times a week, during
which all of his students were required to play the etudes of Barret, Brod, Ferling, and later, of
Gillet himself.9 When his students came to the United States to begin performing and teaching
careers, this etude tradition was transplanted but did not grow, even though it continued at the
Paris Conservatory throughout the twentieth century. Of Gillet’s students who remained in
France, at least five produced pedagogical material of some kind: Louis Bas and Arthur Bridet
wrote methods; Louis Bleuzet wrote his own set of technical studies; and Roland Lamorlette and
Albert Debondue produced etude books. An exception to this dichotomy is Georges Gillet’s
nephew Fernand Gillet, who did write pedagogical materials while in the United States, but only
after playing in an orchestra in France for twenty-five years. He finally came to the United
States in 1925 to replace Longy as principal oboe of the Boston Symphony. In the 1930s he
composed Exercises sur les gammes, les intervalles et le staccato (1930), Méthode pour le début
du Hautbois (1935), and he revised his uncle’s etude book and added a practice method. Despite
Fernand Gillet’s contributions, far more oboe pedagogical materials were produced in France
than in the United States throughout the twentieth century.
At first, Gillet students in the United States were not immediately affiliated with schools
like the Paris Conservatory, therefore there was a lack of teaching tradition to inspire an etude
tradition. A school with the history of the Paris Conservatory did not exist in the United States.
In the 1890s the attempt to establish a National Conservatory of Music in New York was
unsuccessful.10 Rather than entering an environment in which a long tradition of etude composition existed, Gillet’s students began teaching at newly founded schools, and created their
9Ibid., 24.
10The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, 2d ed., s.v. “Conservatories.”
40 own traditions. For example, Marcel Tabuteau began playing in the Philadelphia Orchestra in
1915, but was not affiliated with a school until the Curtis Institute of Music was established in
1924. His contributions to American pedagogy involved disseminating concepts of phrasing and wind control, but did not include composing a pedagogical book.
In establishing an “American school” of oboe playing, Gillet’s students relied on French pedagogical materials such as the studies of Barret, Brod, and Gillet. Generations later,
American teachers continued to depend on these initial materials throughout the twentieth century, but were out of touch with the new etudes being composed in France. American players are missing out on offerings of these more recent books. No similar etudes have emerged to replace these, however, leaving a pedagogical gap in the studies of modern American students.
Twentieth-Century Pedagogical Materials Associated with the Paris Conservatory
A vast array of pedagogical materials emerged from the students and professors at the
Paris Conservatory in the twentieth century. Most of these oboe-etude composers were oboe prizewinners at the Conservatory. From the earliest days of the Paris Conservatory, an annual competition, called the concours, was held for which several levels of prizes were awarded: first prize, second prize, and honorable mentions. This annual concours “was a prestigious musical event, attended by a discerning public and reviewed by the leading critics.”11 Once first prize was received, the winner was expected to terminate studies at the Conservatory and enter the professional world. (For a listing of twentieth-century oboe prizewinners who wrote pedagogical books, see the Appendix).
The materials that these French musicians generated were not limited to methods and etudes, which had been the primary nineteenth-century genres, but included studies of technique,
11Storch, “Georges Gillet: Master Performer and Teacher,” 18. 41 twentieth-century music, and orchestral music. New genres for oboe also emerged such as concert etudes and sight-reading etudes. All of these arose to fill voids in pedagogical materials for oboe that opened when music and playing technique surpassed the old materials.
Methods
Although stand-alone etudes became the prevailing pedagogical material for oboe in the twentieth century, the method tradition continued. Some were aimed at conservatory-level students, others at very young oboists. Twentieth-century methods have been aided by the technology of photography, which portrays the reed-making process, the correct embouchure, and body position in greater detail. A primary difference between nineteenth- and twentieth- century methods is that the latter ones were written for the “system 6” oboe, released in 1872, or the 1906 “plateaux” model. Since no other major key additions took place after 1906, these methods focused on filling in perceived gaps in the method literature.
Louis Bas was one of George Gillet’s first students at the Paris Conservatory. He received first prize in 1885, and went on to serve as soloist at the Opéra and performed with the
Société des Concerts du Conservatoire. Louis Bas’s Méthode Nouvelle de Hautbois does not contain a date of publication. It mentions Triébert’s “system 6” oboe, which was issued in 1872, as being the best oboe. Bas includes a photograph of a “system 6” oboe, rather than Gillet’s
1906 plateaux model. Since Bas’s other publications for oboe date from the early 1910s, his
Méthode was most likely published a few years prior to 1906.
After examining the existing methods during his time, Bas’s goal was to present “that which they lack in clarity and comprehension so necessary to beginners.”12 Interestingly, Bas’s
Méthode is not just aimed at beginners, but those who lack the guidance of a teacher: “We
12Louis Bas, Méthode Nouvelle de Hautbois (Paris: Enoch, n.d.), 3. 42
endeavor to give to those persons who have not access to a teacher the means of learning
alone.”13 Eighteenth-century tutors had been aimed at beginners without teachers as well, but
Bas’s Methode possesses more similarities to nineteenth-century methods. The book is extremely thorough in its presentation of material, which is arranged progressively. The first part of the book is filled with extensive technical studies, including scales and intervallic studies in all keys. These are followed by thirty pages of etudes, most being fast and technical. Bas included eighteen duets for oboe and English horn at the end of his Methode to be used for the
study of English horn.
Another student of Gillet, Arthur Bridet, produced a method entitled L’Education du
hautboïste, published in 1928. He later taught at the Music Conservatory in Lyons and was
known for his excellent reed-making ability.14 At 164 pages, his method is even longer than that of Bas.
Reinhard Luttmann was a student of Pierre Bajeux at the Paris Conservatory, and later became professor at the Music Conservatory in Munster, Germany and soloist in the symphonic orchestra and opera there. Luttmann recognized that the Barret Oboe Method was outdated and set out to alleviate this problem, with A.M.R. Barret, Extract from the Complete Oboe Method,
Realised by R. Luttmann, after the New Edition. Adaptation according to modern technique,
which was published in 1948. Interestingly, this reproduction is extraordinarily more helpful to
modern oboists than the original, with its updated fingering chart and extra technical exercises,
but Barret’s second edition of 1862, reprinted by Boosey and Hawkes, is nevertheless the most
popular in the United States.
13Ibid.
14Nora Post, “Interview with Fernand and Marie Gillet,” The Double Reed 5, no. 3 (1982): 38. 43
In addition to Luttmann, two oboe professors at the Paris Conservatory, Bleuzet and
Bajeux, contributed to this project. The preface reveals the history of the reworking of Barret’s
Method. The Barret Method had been used at the Paris Conservatory through the years, and was
“constantly used by [Bleuzet] for his teaching” while professor there from 1919 to 1941,
alongside his own three books entitled The Technique of the Oboe. Despite this effective pedagogical system, “Bleuzet had planned to revise Barret’s book, bringing it up to date by considering the new problems arising from contemporary music writing and from the progress in instrument making.”15 Bleuzet died before completing this task, but his successor Bajeux and
the oboist-conductor Petiot carried the project to fruition.
This work provides much information on the French concept of method composition.
According to the preface, in order to update Barret’s Method for the demands of contemporary
music, “large parts of the original Method have been discarded.”16 This harkens back to Gillet’s
revision of Brod’s Méthode in the 1890s, which had cast away the outdated parts of Brod’s
original. The preface to Luttmann’s revision states that the discarded parts are no longer
practical to modern oboists, who can nevertheless consider them and the rest of Barret’s original
Method “an encyclopedia of the oboe.”17
Luttmann expresses the insufficiency of practicing solely the Barret Method:
[We] seriously advise the student to practice, concurrently with this Method, the first book of Louis Bleuzet’s ‘The Technique of the Oboe.’ He will find in it everything necessary to develop his technique and tone before undertaking the study of other books.18
15Reinhard Luttmann, Extraits de la Méthode Complète de Hautbois de A.M.R. Barret, 2 vols. (Paris: Leduc, 1948), ii.
16Ibid.
17Ibid.
18Ibid., 13. 44
The section entitled “The Study of Scales” explains the outmoded nature of earlier books:
Far too long, tutors used to teach only two kinds of diatonic scale…but there are many more kinds of scales which one should understand. . . . The masters of modern music have luckily restored to an honorable place the modes of the Gregorian chant. . . . Besides they have extended the use of the whole tone scale and of certain exotic modes.19
In Extraits de la Méthode Complète, Barret’s original method was thus updated to reflect the new
scale formations that pervaded twentieth-century music.
Keeping orchestral music in mind, this book refers to an excerpt from Beethoven’s
Symphony No. 7 to demonstrate the utility of a rhythmic exercise.20 An explanation of harmonic
fingerings is included, since these are useful to obtain “echo effects” in orchestral music.21
These instances reveal the goal of applying what is learned from methods to pieces from the repertory.
Other twentieth-century French methods include Pierre Cruchon’s Méthode de Hautbois
(1954), Andre Caurette’s Le Hautboïste: Méthode Pratique et Progressive (1974) and Raymond
Niverd’s Méthode de Hautbois (1973). Each oboist produced his version of what constitutes a comprehensive method. Cruchon’s Méthode is perhaps the most complete in its coverage of material. Cruchon incorporates into his Méthode musical examples by eighteenth- and nineteenth-century composers such as Bach, Handel, Rameau, Lully, Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven,
Schumann, and Mendelssohn. These were chosen “to make [the student’s] work more pleasant, and teach him the best principles about style, musicality and sonority, helping him so in acquiring a complete and perfect musical culture.”22 In contrast, Barret’s Method from the mid-
19Ibid., 11.
20Ibid., 23.
21Ibid., 48-50.
22Pierre Cruchon, Méthode de Hautbois (Paris: Billaudot, 1954), ii. 45
nineteenth century only included music in nineteenth-century styles, composed by Barret
himself. Pierre Pierlot, Professor of Oboe at the Paris Conservatory when Cruchon’s Méthode
was published, stated in its preface that it fills “a lack in our repertory.”23
Several more recent methods are aimed at younger players, perhaps because the older
market had become saturated with many method choices. Guy Remaud’s Ma Première Année de
Hautbois: Méthode pour Débutants and Michel Giot’s L’A.B.C. de Jeune Hautboïste, books 1-3,
were each published in 1985. Remaud’s most recent pedagogical work is A Precise Method for
Daily Study of the Oboe, published in 2000. Remaud understood that students often lacked
sufficient time for practicing, and thought that advice was needed for how to approach daily
practice:
Our Masters bequeathed us their methods that require many hours of practice. Nowadays, it is difficult for our pupils to consecrate so much time, when they have their schoolwork parallel to their musical studies, often right up to end of the former.24
This concise book includes short daily exercises and a study outline that can be applied to the practice of any piece of music, whether it is an excerpt, etude, sonata, or concerto.
Bernard Delcambre composed Le Hautbois Facile, vol.1-2, published in 1997, followed by four volumes of music entitled Hautbois et Musique (2002), intended to complete the series.
These books are also designed for a student’s first years of oboe study. Like Cruchon,
Delcambre included actual pieces from the repertoire, believing that students should be exposed to these as soon as possible.25 Delcambre’s books also contain glossaries of musical terms,
music history timelines, and musical quizzes for the student.
23Ibid.
24Guy Remaud, A Precise Method for Daily Study of the Oboe (Avrille Cedex, France: Éditions Amuca, 2000), 3.
25Bernard Decambre, Le Hautbois Facile, 2 vols. (Paris: Billadout, 1997), 3. 46
The composers of these twentieth-century methods attempted to fill in gaps left by the
nineteenth-century methods passed down to them. Some were aimed at the youngest of players,
some to those without access to a teacher, and some to the time-crunched conservatory student.
Whereas the music in nineteenth-century methods was usually newly composed, that in
twentieth-century methods frequently included passages from actual pieces of music. For
example, Cruchon and Delcambre drew from solo works of the eighteenth century, mirroring the
twentieth-century reverence for Classical era works. All of these methods demonstrate the
increasing influence that music of all time periods had on twentieth-century pedagogical
literature.
Melodic Etudes
Another type of etude book contains only melodic etudes. Usually in slow tempos, an
example is Debondue’s Vingt-quatre Études melodiques pour hautbois, published in 1952. They
are arranged in order of increasing number of accidentals in the key signature, from zero to six
sharps and flats. Because they are designed to address melodic study and playing, all of the
etudes are slow. All are well marked with dynamics and tempo fluctuations and contain florid
passages that require fluidity of musical line and facility of fingers. Ornaments such as grace
notes, mordents, and trills contribute to these demands.
Debondue’s Vingt-quatre Études melodiques is an excellent alternative to Barret’s “Forty
Progressive Melodies” from his Oboe Method, because Debondue’s possess characteristics that put them more in sync with twentieth century music in general. For instance, they contain much more rhythmic complexity, more difficult key signatures, and require total command of side and alternate fingerings on a modern oboe (post 1906). Although they are in slow tempos, the melodic writing calls for more facility than that of Barret. 47
Another example of this melodic style of etude book is André Caurette’s 18 Études
Melodiques et Progressives, published in 1981. Each of these eighteen etudes is shorter and
much less complex than in Debondue’s etudes. Caurette’s book is not just a series of etudes but
also a collection of short pieces in contrasting styles. Each etude possesses a title that describes
its musical style or genre. For example, the fourth etude is entitled “Berceuse” (Lullaby), and
the twelfth etude is “Farandole” (Fast Dance). Other dances include “Petite Valse,” “Menuet,”
and “Danse profane.” Two of the etudes, Nos. 10 and 14, are simply titled “Etude
(articulations)” due to their more technical nature. Most key signatures possess zero or one
accidental, so that the progressive nature of the book is found primarily in the area of rhythm.
This book serves as an excellent introduction to various musical styles for a beginning oboist.
Twentieth-Century Transcription Etudes
Transcribing etudes for oboe had taken place in the nineteenth century with Edouard
Sabon and Antoine Bruyant. Sabon’s studies in 12 Études d’après Bochsa were based on works for harp, and Bruyant’s 25 Grandes Études de Hugot contained transcriptions of flute etudes.
Transcriptions continued in the twentieth century, but violin etudes served as the primary source.
Since none of these etudes were originally written for oboe, none specifically targets oboe mechanism the way etudes composed by oboists do. For example, Gillet’s third etude in Études pour L’Enseignement supérieur was specifically designed for drilling a particular fingering, as he stated before the etude: “Use exclusively the fork Fa or F, otherwise this study would be useless.”26 Gillet’s book also contained several etudes that exercise trills, but none of the
transcription etudes deals with trills or other ornaments in particular because the etudes were not
originally designed for developing those aspects of oboe technique. Nevertheless, the
26Gillet, Études pour L’Enseignement supérieur, 10. 48 transcription etudes are worthwhile because each composer chose to transcribe different violin etudes, so that each book contains a completely different musical and technical emphasis.
Antony Lamotte’s Dix-Huit Études, transcrites d’après Mazas, Kreutzer, Rode, Schall, et
Bruni was published in 1905. These are varied in style, transcribed after the etudes of violinists of different nationalities. There are no slow etudes in this book, but instead moderate to fast technical studies with suggested metronome markings. These are excellent etudes with which to gain facility in the keys represented. Because they are transcriptions of nineteenth-century etudes, which typically avoided remote key areas, the majority has one or two accidentals in the key signature, with the most being four.
The majority of the etudes are written in a constant rhythmic pattern, with virtually no rhythmic variety except in transitional sections. In contrast, nineteenth-century oboe etudes had included more rhythmic variety. Interestingly, the prevalent time signature in Lamotte’s transcriptions is not 4/4, as it was in many nineteenth-century etude books. Instead, 6/8 and 3/8 predominate. On the whole Lamotte’s etudes are examples of nineteenth-century musical styles in moderate to fast tempos. Despite this nineteenth-century content, Lamotte’s etudes provide the twentieth-century player useful additional study materials.
Ferdinand Capelle’s Vingt Grandes Études, d’après Sivori, A. Charpentier, Rode,
Fiorillo, published in 1943, contains more temporal variety than does Lamotte’s. There is one entirely slow etude, and six that begin with slow introductions before the faster main section.
Dynamic markings are prevalent, but not with the frequency that they appeared in Lamotte’s transcriptions.
Key signatures range from zero to six accidentals, more variety than in any of the other etude transcriptions discussed here. Capelle’s etudes also contain much more rhythmic variety 49 than the other books of transcriptions, both within etudes and between them. Of these twenty etudes, only two have a constant rhythm throughout, whereas at least thirteen of Lamotte’s eighteen etudes remain for the most part in a constant rhythmic pattern.
P. Segouin’s 25 Études Artistiques was published in 1946. Segouin includes four slow etudes that provide practice of expression with abundant dynamic markings. These etudes also contain more rhythmic complexity than those in the other transcription volumes. For his collection of etudes, Segouin chose to focus on intricacies of rhythm rather than on metric or harmonic complexity.
André Cailliéret’s 20 Études, choisies dans les oeuvres de Dancla, Fiorillo, Kreutzer,
Schubert, Gaviniès, Mazas, et arrangées pour le hautbois was published in 1965. While
Segouin’s etudes focused on rhythmic subtleties, Cailliéret’s work on increasing metronome speed. Under the first etude, Cailliéret advised: “Except for Etudes No. 1 and 10, all the metronome movements are minimum movements.”27 These exceptions are slow compared to the rest of the etudes, with No. 1 marked Allegro cantabile and No. 10 marked Adagio.
Like other etude transcriptions, Cailliéret’s are tonally conservative. Sixteen of the twenty etudes have a key signature of only one sharp or flat. An interesting feature of Cailliéret’s etudes is that nine of the twenty are in minor keys.
Cailliéret’s etudes contain much less rhythmic variety than those of Capelle and Segouin.
Approximately half remain rhythmically constant, and only two are in a compound meter. The lack of metric variety in most of these collections of transcriptions is due to their nineteenth- century content. Most composers did not employ varied meters until the twentieth century.
27André Cailliéret, 20 Études Choisies dans les Œuvres de Dancla, Fiorillo, Kreutzer, Schubert, Gaviniès, Mazas, et arrangées pour le hautbois (Paris: Éditions M.R. Braun, 1965), 1. 50
Cailliéret produced another book of transcriptions, but one that is repertoire-based rather
than derived from etudes. His Quinze Études, d’après les Sonates pour violon seul de J.-S. Bach,
published in 1967, includes movements of Bach’s Violin Sonatas that lie comfortably in the
range of the oboe. Movements employing an abundance of string-specific techniques, such as
double stops, are excluded from Cailliéret’s transcriptions.
Gérard Perreau’s 20 Caprices pour hautbois d’après Fiorillo was published in 1973.
Whereas other transcribers chose etudes from several nineteenth-century sources, Perreau
devoted his attention entirely to the works of Fiorillo, an Italian violinist and composer who lived
from 1755 to 1823. Perreau’s twenty etudes are based on Fiorillo’s Thirty-Six Caprices for
Violin. Perreau also omitted the etudes idiomatic to violin, such as those with double stops. For
the last etude, however, Perreau posed an interesting solution to double stops by transcribing
them as two separate parts, making a duet for two oboes.
Most of the key signatures contain two or three accidentals, more on average than in the
other etude transcriptions discussed. The majority end harmonically open, meaning that each
one leads harmonically to the beginning of the next. Many of the etudes are written in a constant
rhythm, and fifteen of the twenty are in 4/4 meter. Again, not until the twentieth century did
rhythmic and metric variety become increasingly important.
Many of Perreau’s etudes are stark in regard to expressive markings. Below the final
etude Perreau writes: “The interpretation of nuances is reserved to the initiative of the
interpreters who must keep a constant care of precision/accuracy.”28 Expression is thus left to
the discretion of the performer. A strength of these etudes is that they are helpful for drilling
different articulations over the same rhythmic pattern. For example, at the bottom of the ninth
28Gérard Perreau, 20 Caprices pour Hautbois d’après Fr. Fiorillo (Paris: Billadout, 1973), 22. 51 etude, Perreau suggests: “This etude can be played entirely detached.”29 In No. 15, Perreau actually provides four articulation options for practicing the etude.
In addition to the variety in articulation, another interesting feature of Perreau’s etudes is that two different musical styles are represented. The first is florid and virtuosic, with lots of dynamics, ornaments, and rhythmic variety. Most of these begin with slow introductions or are entirely slow. The second style is more technique-based, with faster tempos, more constant rhythms, and fewer dynamics. The final etude is a duet for two oboes or instruments of the same tessitura, reconfirming the book’s pedagogical purpose.
Taken as a whole, these books of etude transcriptions offer a large variety of material for study. Each book possesses its own valuable and unique characteristics. The etudes in Lamotte’s
Dix-Huit Études contain many dynamic and expressive markings, no slow etudes, and little rhythmic variety, with the majority in the time signatures of 6/8 and 3/8. Those in Capelle’s
Vingt Grandes Études encompass the widest range of tonalities and the most rhythmic complexity. Segouin’s 25 Études Artistiques contains the most etudes in moderate tempos.
Cailliéret’s 20 Études includes virtually no dynamics, sixteen of the twenty etudes contain zero or one accidental in the key signature, and nine of the twenty are in the minor mode. Perreau’s
20 Caprices exhibits etudes in two different styles. The first is florid and virtuosic, with slower tempos, rhythmic variety, and more dynamic markings. The second is more technically oriented, with faster tempos, and less rhythmic variety and dynamics.
These transcriptions demonstrate each composer’s emphasis, whether it is on expression, style, articulation, speed, or rhythm. They offer a wider variety of nineteenth-century styles than the oboe methods of the nineteenth century alone. Because these books contain exclusively
29Ibid., 9.
52
transcriptions of nineteenth-century violin music, they do not mirror trends and techniques of
twentieth-century music. New genres emerged to fill this need.
New Pedagogical Genres
In the twentieth century, the development of oboe key work had drawn to a close, but
changes in music itself placed increased demands on players. Musicians in France responded by
creating pedagogical materials to satisfy these new requirements.
Technique studies
Nineteenth-century music was governed largely by functional tonality. In the twentieth century, functional tonality declined as chromatic harmony and atonality became more common.
To accommodate the expanded harmonic vocabulary of the twentieth century, books appeared that dealt exclusively with technique, training oboists to have equal fluency in all keys. These contain no etudes, but are entirely devoted to developing finger technique and articulation.
Louis Bleuzet’s La Technique du Hautbois, vol.1-3, was published in 1936. Volume One
contains long tones, trills, and major and minor scales in numerous rhythms and articulations.
Volume Two addresses scales in thirds, scales in fourths, and whole-tone and chromatic scales.
Volume Three drills every possible form of arpeggio, and concludes with the study of staccato.
The extraordinary thoroughness of these books makes them invaluable to developing solid
overall technique.
Debondue’s Cent Exercises pour Hautbois, published in 1961, was designed for the
practice of fingering patterns that are infrequently used but necessary for complete mastery of the
oboe.30 He also published Méthode pour Hautbois, part 3, Études progressives, in 1981. This
30Albert Debondue, Cent Exercises pour Hautbois (Paris: Leduc, 1961), 1.
53 was intended to follow volumes one and two of Joseph Sellner’s Méthod, which was first published in the nineteenth century and revised by Bleuzet in the early twentieth century. To complement Sellner’s first two volumes, Debondue explained that he wrote exercises in the six most difficult tonalities. This shows that proficiency in all tonalities had become a necessity in the twentieth century, whereas nineteenth-century music had rarely traversed keys of more than five accidentals.
Guy Lacour’s Precis pour l’étude des gammes pour haubtois was published in 1997. It contains technical exercises similar to those Bleuzet’s La Technique du Hautbois, though they are not as extensive. Major and minor scales, thirds, arpeggios, dominant seventh chords, whole- tone scales, and chromatic scales are presented in a variety of rhythms and articulations. Lacour wrote out the exercises in each tonality, whereas Bleuzet wrote his exercises in C major, leaving the oboist to transpose them to other tonalities. Published sixty years after Bleuzet’s, Lacour’s technique book restates the importance of acquiring a solid foundation of technique.
Concert etudes
Another genre, the concert etude, emerged in the early nineteenth century in the works of virtuoso pianists. They composed concert etudes to display their own technical achievements and to impress audiences rather than to provide studies for students. Chopin’s twenty-four etudes, published in the 1830s, and Liszt’s Twelve Transcendental Etudes, published in 1852, are examples of the new genre. Although concert etudes for piano flourished in the nineteenth century, they were not composed for the oboe during this time. There are several possible reasons for this. There were no oboe virtuosi to promote concert etudes (like Chopin and Liszt did for the piano) because oboists were busy improving the instrument, and study materials were devoted to reflecting keywork developments. Unlike the piano, which reached its modern form 54 by the mid-nineteenth century, the oboe did not become fully mechanized until the early twentieth century. Another reason no concert etudes were written for oboe is that the oboe was simply not popular as a solo instrument in the nineteenth century. Composers used the oboe for coloration in the orchestra, but rarely turned to it for solo literature. It did not lend itself to the expression of Romantic ideals like piano and violin because it had a limited range and expressive capabilities relative to these instruments.31
Once technical development of the oboe drew to a close and its popularity as a solo instrument increased in the twentieth century, the idea of the concert etude reached the oboe. An example is Henri Tomasi's Trois études de Concert, published in 1964 and dedicated to Etienne
Baudo, then Professor of Oboe at the Paris Conservatory. Tomasi’s three etudes are “Rhythms to accompany the Concerto in C of Mozart; Variations in the form of a Sonatina for Oboe
Solo.”32 Each of the three etudes corresponds with the three movements of Mozart’s Oboe
Concerto. Tomasi indicated “enchaïnez Orchestre” at the end of the first and second etudes, suggesting that they may be used as cadenzas during performance with an orchestra. In addition to their potential to be used in performance, these etudes are useful pieces to study a variety of rhythms and meters.
Silvestrini’s Six Études pour hautbois (1997) may also be considered an example of concert etudes for oboe. They resemble short character pieces as much as they do technical studies. Two of these etudes were required materials for the prestigious 2001 Gillet Oboe
Competition, a testament to their viability as virtuoso solo pieces. Their programmatic nature,
31New Grove Dictionary, 2d ed., s.v. “Oboe.”
32Henri Tomasi, Trois Études de Concert (Paris: Leduc, 1964), 1. 55
each being inspired by a late nineteenth-century painting, also deems them worthy of the concert
stage.
Orchestral studies
A third type of pedagogical material that surfaced in the twentieth century is the book of
orchestral studies. These are essentially collections of oboe parts or excerpts from orchestral,
ballet, or theater music from the eighteenth through the twentieth centuries. Devoid of written
commentary, technical exercises, or practice advice, their sole purpose is to familiarize oboists
with difficult or exposed orchestral passages.
An early example is Louis Bas’s Étude l’Orchestre, Extraits de Symphonies, Ouvertures,
Opéras, Oratirios et autres Classiques et Modernes, published in 1911 in three volumes. These contain reprints of exposed passages for oboe spanning the compositional periods of J.S. Bach to
Claude Debussy. The inclusion of passages composed two centuries before demonstrates that a musical canon had formed by the twentieth-century, whereas concerts in the nineteenth century usually consisted of newly composed pieces.
Pierre Bajeux collected difficult passages from symphonic and dramatic works for a work entitled Traits Difficiles, tires d’œuvres symphoniques et dramatiques pour hautbois, published in four volumes in 1943. The pieces included in Bajeux’s collection show that over thirty years transpired since Bas’s Étude l’Orchestre was published, with works included from the 1920s and
1930s. Bajeux also compiled a similar volume of passages for English horn in 1948. In the
preface to Traits Difficiles, Claude Delvincourt, the Director of the Paris Conservatory in 1943,
confirmed the need for these volumes in the educational literature. He explained that due to the
hasty working conditions of twentieth-century ensembles, in which players are required to be 56 performance-ready on a minimum of rehearsals, oboists must prepare difficult passages ahead of time so as to never be caught off guard.33
Sight-reading etudes
The hasty conditions mentioned above helped spawn another new genre, the sight- reading etude. These etudes train oboists to be able to play what is placed in front of them with little or no rehearsal. Because these are intended for the practice of sight-reading, they contain a variety of rhythms, harmonies, articulations, dynamics, and metric changes. Debondue composed three volumes of sight-reading etudes: 25 Études-Déchiffrages (1967), 50 Études-
Déchiffrages (1967), and 48 Études-Déchiffrages (1970). Examples by non-oboists are Guy
Lacour’s 100 Déchiffrages manuscrits, vol. 1-2 (1969), and Désiré Dondeyne’s 12 Déchiffrages
(1981).
Studies in twentieth-century music
Music underwent vast changes in the twentieth century, leading composers to search for new sounds, styles, and techniques. Emphasis on the traditional parameters of melody and harmony was supplanted by an emphasis on process and different methods of control, and these required new forms of notation. The exploration of unique sounds led to the creation of new playing techniques on the oboe, such as flutter tonguing and multiphonics. Studies were then needed to teach these new notations and the techniques they required. The French were quick to fill the void.
Heinz Holliger’s Pro Musica Nova: Studien zum Spielen Neuer Musik was published in
1973. This book offers a collection of musical examples by twelve composers employing new
33Pierre Bajeux, comp., Traits Difficiles, tirés d’œuvres symphoniques et dramatiques pour hautbois (Paris: Leduc, 1943), ii. 57 performance techniques. An appendix includes practice advice for each piece, and a bibliography lists other pieces that use new techniques and notations as well.
Eugène Bozza’s Graphismes, Préparation à la lecture des différents Graphismes
Musicaux contemporains, was published in 1975. This work contains an explanation of graphic notations followed by four studies that employ them. Graphic notations arose in the twentieth century when composers needed new notations to indicate the novel sounds they desired. These notations give more control to composers regarding the sounds they seek, such as quarter-tone pitches and variety of vibrato speed. They also give more freedom to performers, such as allowing one to play the notes in the order of one’s choosing.34
Guy Remaud recognized that knowledge of twentieth-century techniques is imperative to oboists, but that the means for younger players to learn them did not exist. His three volumes entitled Approche de la Musique Contemporaine were published between 1988 and 1992. They are intended for young students to study side by side with traditional etudes.35 Remaud strove to make these techniques comprehensible to young students, thus his exercises are much simpler than Bozza’s. Remaud’s first two volumes introduce graphic notations and playing techniques such as bisbigliando (“tone color” trills) and flutter tonguing. The third volume is a collection of eight pieces for oboe and magnetic band or percussion. These pieces are designed to apply the techniques learned in the first two volumes.
34Eugène Bozza, Graphismes, Préparation à la lecture des différents Graphismes Musicaux contemporains (Paris: Leduc, 1975), 1.
35Guy Remaud, Approche de la Musique Contemporaine pour Hautbois, 3 vols. (Paris: Billadout, 1988-92), 1. 58
Twentieth-Century Technical Etudes
Gillet’s Études pour L’Enseignement supérieur du Hautbois, published in 1909, was a groundbreaking work that included etudes of a difficulty never before seen in pedagogical materials. Gillet wanted to prepare students for the “innumerable difficulties that are encountered in our symphonic concerts and theatres.”36 In mirroring difficult orchestral
repertoire, Gillet went so far as to include an actual excerpt in one of his etudes, from the first
oboe part of Rossini’s opera The Barber of Seville. Late nineteenth-century composers
increasingly turned to chromaticism for expression, and many of Gillet’s etudes reflect this,
containing more chromaticism than previous etudes. One of Gillet’s etudes includes passages to
be played using harmonic fingerings to produce a different tone color, suggesting that composers
seeking new sounds were calling for this technique. With its increased technical requirements,
reflection of contemporary music, and inclusion of new playing techniques, Gillet’s work
influenced subsequent etudes produced in France.
Ernest Loyon’s Trente-deux études pour hautbois was published in 1925 and dedicated to
Louis Bleuzet, the Paris Conservatory’s Professor of Oboe at that time. Loyon’s etudes are
directed toward particular technical problems; rather than containing variety of material, each
one drills a specific aspect of oboe technique, whether it is a rhythm, ornament, articulation, or
interval. For instance, No. 15 is a study of grace notes, and No. 26 contains nothing but octaves.
The purpose of each of Loyon’s etudes is evident from the first few measures.
Many etudes address particular patterns of movement. For example, all of the passages
in No. 2 contain lower neighbor tones. No. 20 drills upper neighbor tones in different tonalities.
36Gillet, Études pour L’Enseignement supérieur, ii.
59
Some etudes address the oboe mechanism, such as No. 16, in which the oboist is faced with
choosing side F or forked F in every measure.
A unique feature of Loyon’s book of etudes is that sixteen different time signatures are
represented. They provide good practice for time signatures encountered less frequently, and
those with an odd number of beats in the measure, such as 7/4, 9/4, 15/8, 5/16, and 9/16. Within
these various meters, most of the etudes contain a constant rhythm throughout, or a consistently
repeating pattern.
Loyon’s Trente-Deux Études extend Gillet’s idea of producing increasingly technical
etudes. Many of Loyon’s etudes even resemble Gillet’s. For example, Loyon’s etude No. 25
and Gillet’s etude No. 18 are similar in their tonality of E major, use of trills, and staccato
articulation. Loyon also used Gillet’s idea of including a chromatic study and an octave study.
All in all, Loyon’s etudes represent the increased technical demands required of twenieth-century
oboists.
Roland Lamorlette remained in Paris after studying with Gillet, rather than seeking work
in the United States like many of his classmates did. He performed as a soloist in the Opéra-
Comique and Société des Concerts du Conservatoire, and went on to serve as interim professor
at the Paris Conservatory in 1959. In Lamorlette’s Douze Études pour le Hautbois, published in
1954, the editor’s note makes reference to the difficulty of contemporary music and the necessity
of acquiring good technique. All of these etudes were “conceived in the spirit of the modern
orchestra,”37 a comment that hearkens back to Gillet’s 1909 publication, which was also inspired by increasingly difficult orchestral repertoire. Not only does the impetus behind Lamorlette’s
37Roland Lamorlette, Douze Études pour le Hautbois (Paris: Leduc, 1954), 1.
60 work resemble Gillet’s, Lamorlette borrows Gillet’s idea of including an actual excerpt in one of the etudes. Lamorlette’s eleventh etude contains a short passage from Ravel’s Piano Concerto.
Despite some similarities to Gillet’s etudes, Lamorlette’s involve more rhythmic complexity, more difficult key signatures, extended use of the oboe’s high range, and more frequent use of side fingerings and sliding between keys. Compared to those of Gillet,
Lamorlette’s phrases typically lack melodic shape and direction, with musical material more technical in nature.
Lamorlette’s twelfth etude is intended for the practice of double tonguing, a technique that was not directly addressed in nineteenth-century etudes. Lamorlette precedes this etude with verbal advice and twelve short exercises to develop the technique. One of the exercises is an excerpt from “L’Ecole des Mairs,” by E. Bondeville. Marked 168 to the quarter note, Lamorlette advises that this “very fast tempo compels the oboist to use double staccato” and that “at this moment the oboe is quite alone in the score.”38 This demonstrates the way that oboe technique had to expand to accommodate difficult orchestral music.
Whereas Loyon included a wide variety of meters throughout his etudes, Lamorlette’s focus is on rhythmic rather than metric variety. This emphasis on intricate rhythms mirrors the music of twentieth-century composers, such as the second movement of Stravinsky’s Symphony in C, which contains comparably complex rhythmic patterns for the oboist.
The skill required to execute Lamorlette’s etudes is considerably higher than what was required by nineteenth-century etudes. For example, due to the third etude’s chromatic challenges, Lamorlette suggested practicing it slowly, “keeping strictly time and playing plainly,
38Ibid., 27
61 without any dynamic nuances or accents.”39 This singular focus on the notes had not been necessary in previous etudes. In particular, Lamorlette’s etudes exercise side fingerings (A-flat,
E-flat, D-sharp) and sliding for low register fingerings, especially No. 2, marked “Slide.” The designation “slide” at the head of this etude refers to the low note fingerings, which can only be executed by sliding the right-hand “pinky” finger. Becoming familiar with this technique prepares the oboist for its requirement in much twentieth-century music.
The primary difficulty of Lamorlette’s etudes is their unpredictability caused by a lack of familiar tonal or musical patterns, and this characteristic distinguishes them from previous etudes. Nineteenth-century etudes that addressed technique contained familiar patterns such as arpeggios or thirds, and conventional harmonic progressions. Because music in the twentieth century broke with conventions, so did the etudes of Lamorlette.
Albert Debondue, one of Gillet’s last students, won first prize in 1919 during Gillet’s final year at the Conservatory. He was soloist at the Opéra-Comique and the Concerts
Pasdeloup. Debondue produced an unusually large etude output of eight volumes between the years 1952 and 1981. Three of these are examples of a new genre, sight-reading etudes. Of the remaining volumes, three contain etudes of extreme technical difficulty. These are his Trente-
Deux Études, Vingt-Cinq Études, and Douze Études.
Debondue’s Trente-Deux Études was published in 1952. Four melodic etudes in slow tempos provide some variety and offer melodic practice. In contrast, the etudes of Gillet and
Loyon were exclusively fast. In addition to chromatic and whole-tone studies, Debondue included etudes in all major and minor keys, whereas nineteenth-century etudes emphasized zero to three accidentals.
39Ibid., 6. 62
Many of Debondue’s etudes contain quick changes to unrelated key areas, such as those a
tritone away. These types of modulations were not found in nineteenth-century etudes, and are
indicative of the changes taking place in twentieth-century music. Phrases often modulate to
enharmonic key areas, such as from G-flat major to F-sharp major. These provide good practice
for “changing gears” quickly.
Debondue’s Vingt-Cinq Études was published in 1955 and offers even more specific
training in technique. These etudes contain only the hardest key signatures, with sixteen out of
the twenty-five possessing five or more accidentals. The two etudes that contain less than four
sharps or flats are preoccupied with issues other than a difficult key signature, such as No. 24 in
G major, which addresses double tonguing. Vingt-Cinq Études even contains an etude with
seven sharps and one with seven flats. For the oboist, proficiency in F-flat major and A-sharp
minor makes other keys seem easy!
These etudes reflect the twentieth-century trend of increased rhythmic complexity. The
final etude is worth noting because of its assortment of rhythms, meters, articulations, tonalities,
and tempos. This three-page etude contains sixteen different metronome markings, thirteen time
signature and key signature changes, and a vast array of mixed articulations and rhythms. It
serves as a compendium for everything that Debondue’s etudes offer.
Debondue presents more advanced techniques and specific training in Vingt-Cinq Études.
For example, six of the twenty-five etudes are intricate studies of ornaments. In contrast, only one etude in Debondue’s Trente-Deux Études contained ornaments of any kind. Also, in
Debondue’s Trente-Deux Études no indications were given regarding alternate fingerings because they were rarely necessary, but in his Vingt-Cinq Études every etude demands alternate fingerings, thus each is preceded by a list of the ones it requires. 63
All in all, the emphasis of Debondue’s Vingt-Cinq Études is on developing technique in difficult key signatures and becoming proficient at using alternate fingerings. As a result, phrases remain in one key area longer rather than rapidly cycling through easier keys. Also,
Debondue’s metric choices are less diverse, and he includes no slow etudes, serving primarily the development of finger-technique in difficult tonalities.
Debondue’s Douze Études was published in 1961 and also contains more difficult key signatures, with ten out of the twelve etudes containing four to six accidentals. An important feature is that many of the etudes are tonally ambiguous from the outset. Only towards the ends of phrases do the key areas become clear. Debondue occasionally delays the use of the leading tone for this purpose.
The etudes in Douze Études in particular call for sliding in the low register. For example,
No. 5 requires the player to slide frequently from low B-flat to E-flat and from low D-flat to E- flat. Again, twentieth-century music rendered this technique a necessity for oboists to master.
In summary, Debondue’s Trente-Deux Études, Vingt-Cinq Études, and Douze Études offer an inordinate amount of technique development. In terms of tonality, all three books are exceedingly difficult and give the player command of all tonalities. The etudes in Trente-Deux
Études are truly progressive in key areas, proceeding from zero to six accidentals. These are more accessible harmonically, being clearly tonal from the beginning. In Vingt-Cinq Études, only the most difficult tonalities are exploited. This is also the case with Douze Études, but the tonalities are ambiguous from the outset. All three of Debondue’s etude collections provide excellent practices for quick key changes and for modulations to distantly related keys, such as those a tritone away. They aid the oboist in becoming comfortable with alternate fingerings, offering endless opportunities for one to employ them. The etudes treat all registers equally, 64 requiring fluency in the high register in particular, and train the oboist to manage the entire range of the oboe with ease.
Debondue and Lamorlette each wrote etudes involving technique for its own sake rather than to serve musical ends. Gillet’s 1909 publication pushed the technical envelope for its time, and Lamorlette and Debondue’s etudes achieve a similar end nearly half a century later, exceeding Gillet’s in overall difficulty.
Composers at the Paris Conservatory were also involved with etude production. The
French composer Eugene Bozza was known primarily for chamber music for wind instruments.
Though not an oboe student at the Paris Conservatory, he won first prizes for the violin (1924), conducting (1930), composition (1934), as well as the Grand Prix de Rome. His Dix-Huit
Études, published in 1950, contains excerpts from oboe orchestral parts and from Bozza’s own works for oboe. Bozza did not specify which excerpts he used, whereas Gillet and Lamorlette had done so in their etudes. Bozza seems to purposely disguise the excerpts in several of the etudes, using them as short quotations that would only be obvious to someone who recognizes the excerpts. The music surrounding the excerpted passages consists of “fantasy” material, passages that wander and sequence while showcasing the oboist’s technique. For example, in
No. 4 he hides an excerpt from Respighi’s Fountains of Rome and surrounds it with other musical material. Bozza’s etudes provide yet another example of the increased importance of orchestral music on pedagogical materials.
Bozza’s Quatorze Études sur des Modes Karnatiques, published in 1973, contains studies of the Karnatic modes, which are part of the musical culture of South India. A table of the twenty-four modes and suggestions for practicing them precedes the fourteen etudes. These 65 etudes exemplify the twentieth-century trend of incorporating non-western music into the
European musical tradition.
Pierre Max Dubois attended the Paris Conservatory from 1949 to 1953, studying piano and composition. He later became a conductor and taught analysis at the Paris Conservatory.
His Douze Études pour hautbois was published in 1959. Just under the title is the indication
“Articulations et Mouvements metronomiques de Pierre Pierlot, Hautbois solo de l’Opera-
Comique.” By consulting Pierlot, who completed studies at the Paris Conservatory in 1941 and served as Oboe Professor there from 1974 to 1984, Dubois further directed his etudes at the needs of oboists.
These etudes emphasize chromatic movement on two different levels. Some contain large-scale chromatic movement when passages sequence up or down chromatically, such as in
No. 5 and No. 9. On a small scale, the majority of the etudes contain chromatic scales as part of their melodic material. For instance, the main theme of No. 9 contains part of a chromatic scale.
Though they are not atonal, Dubois’s etudes display an ambiguous approach to tonality.
None of the twelve etudes has accidentals in the key signature, so they provide good practice for reading accidentals as one plays through each etude. Many contain modal ambiguity, such as
No. 12, which begins with alternating E-flats and E-naturals, suggesting C major or C minor.
Dubois often asserts a tonal center through repetition of a pitch rather than through traditional harmonic relationships. Dubois’s etudes represent a rejection of functional tonality yet refusal to discard the concept of tonality altogether. They demonstrate that it was possible to form an approach to tonality during a century when many turned from it altogether to compose atonal or serial works. 66
In 1969, forty years after the inception of dodecaphonic music in Vienna, Reinhard
Luttmann’s Vingt et Une Études Dodécaphoniques pour Hautbois was published. Each of
Luttmann’s etudes is based on a series that he devised, which he printed at the beginning of the
book. Although the series contains a reference to tonality in that major thirds are the
predominant interval, the music itself does not suggest a tonality. Without a tonal center to
anchor the music, Luttmann gives it shape and direction with metric and rhythmic inflections.
Because the series of twelve notes determines the order of pitches but not their duration,
Luttmann chooses different notes to stress with length and with their position in the metric
structure.
In his etudes Luttmann introduces a new playing technique involving the alternation
between regular and harmonic fingerings to produce a different color on the same note. Also
included is graphic notation, which instructs the player to begin a figure slowly, speed up and
slow it down again. These modern playing and notational techniques are common to pieces of
music employing the twelve-tone method.
Luttmann’s volume concludes with seven excerpts from the orchestral repertoire which
are based on twelve tone procedures: Schoenberg’s Ertwartung and Moses and Aron, Berg’s
Wozzeck, Lulu, and Violin Concerto, and Henze’s Concertino and Konig Hirsch. Again, this publication reflects the trend of including excerpts in pedagogical works for oboe. Rather than incorporating these excerpts into the etudes, Luttmann examines the twelve-tone process itself to prepare oboists for this type of music. Although the entire collection of etudes is based on the same series, each etude presents a different challenge and demonstrates the musical possibilities in twelve-tone music. 67
Guy Lacour was a saxophonist who studied at the Paris Conservatory in the early 1950s
and later composed books of etudes for several instruments. His etudes offer the oboist the study
of several twentieth-century musical trends. For example, Lacour’s 24 Études Atonales Faciles,
published in 1972, introduces the concept of atonality. His Vingt-huit Études pour hautbois sur
les modes a transpositions limitees d’Olivier Messaien, published in 1979, introduces oboists to
Messaien’s seven modes of limited transposition, which are sets of six to ten notes that divide the octave symmetrically, and thus can only be transposed a limited number of times before pitches begin repeating. Lacour’s 22 Dodecaprices, published in 1998, contains studies that are each based on a different twelve-note series. In contrast, Luttmann’s dodecaphonic etudes used one series for all of his etudes. Oboists may encounter dodecaphony, atonality, or modes of limited transposition in twentieth-century music, and Lacour’s etudes serve as an excellent introduction to these trends.
Gilles Silvestrini’s Six Études pour hautbois, published in 1997, contains programmatic
etudes; each was inspired by a late nineteenth-century painting. Most of the paintings are
impressionistic, and Silvestrini depicts them with devices common to musical impressionism,
such as the whole-tone scale and the use of harmonic color for its own sake.
Not only are Silvestrini’s six etudes programmatic, they are also studies in different
aspects of oboe technique. This is exemplified by Silvestrini’s fourth etude, which was inspired
by Renoir’s Path in the Woods (1874). The painting is impressionistic in its emphasis on short
brush strokes, subtle changes of color, and contrasts between light and shade. Silvestrini mimics
this aurally: short brush strokes become a short scalar figure that opens the etude, subtle color
changes occur as the figure repeats with slightly different pitches, and contrasts between light
and shade become dynamic variations. As an etude, the piece becomes a study in articulation 68
and in varying each presentation of the scalar figure. As a character piece, it depicts a path in the
woods with birdcalls and other flurries of activity from creatures hidden in the underbrush.
Manet’s The Spanish Ballet, which inspired the sixth etude, is more realistic than
impressionistic, and to reflect this, Silvestrini uses a direct reference to Spanish dance. Instead
of the shaded transitions characteristic of impressionism, people and objects in Manet’s painting
are given clear outlines. This clarity is reflected in the more sectional nature of this etude. All of
the etudes in Silvestrini’s volume provide the opportunity for musical and technical virtuosity.
Overall, these twentieth-century technical etudes thoroughly cover enharmonic
equivalents, rhythmic complexity within a constant meter, rapidly alternating meters, wide
variety of meters within each book, rapidly changing keys, and difficult key signatures. For the
oboist in particular, they drill alternate fingerings and give all registers of the oboe equal
importance. They reflect important twentieth-century musical trends, such as impressionism
(Silvestrini), heightened use of chromaticism (Loyon, Lamorlette, Debondue), atonality
(Lacour), dodecaphony (Luttmann, Lacour), and use of non-Western music (Bozza). They
prepare the oboist for virtually any challenge that orchestral music might pose.
Conclusion
Over the course of the twentieth century, French musicians generated a wealth of pedagogical materials. These filled gaps in the educational literature, from methods and melodic etudes for beginners to the most difficult technical etudes for advanced players. New genres emerged, such as studies in twentieth-century music and orchestral music, and sight-reading and concert etudes.
Gillet’s Études pour L’Enseignement supérieur (1909) bridged the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Written for the 1906 plateau model oboe, it was the last in a long line of 69
nineteenth-century collections demonstrating the latest mechanical developments. It was also the
first of many publications in the twentieth century to push the technical envelope, introduce new
playing techniques, and reflect the importance of orchestral excerpts.
Gillet’s landmark work influenced subsequent studies produced in France. The need for
technically challenging oboe etudes continued as increasingly difficult orchestral repertoire
appeared, inspiring the etudes of Loyon, Lamorlette, and Debondue. As composers asked for
new sounds, a demand for new performance techniques continued, giving rise to studies such as
Holliger’s Pro Musica Nova and Remaud’s Approche de la Musique Contemporaine. Gillet’s inclusion of an excerpt in one of his etudes inspired Lamorlette to do the same, and led Bas and
Bajeux to compile books of excerpts exclusively. With so many of Gillet’s students immigrating to the United States in the early twentieth century, it is unfortunate that his publication did not inspire similar etude productivity in the United States.
Oboists in the United States are familiar with earlier works associated with the Paris
Conservatory, such as Barret’s Method and Gillet’s Études, but most have not been adequately exposed to all of the twentieth-century offerings. These oboists could benefit especially from the advanced technical etudes, which aid in the development of technique necessary to perform all types of music. In the early twentieth century, players had to be imported from Europe to fill positions in U.S. orchestras, due to the paucity of trained oboists here. Today, nearly a century later, auditions for American orchestral jobs are extraordinarily competitive. Etudes produced during this transformative period may provide oboists the edge needed to win one of these coveted positions. To aid in this endeavor, I now turn to these etudes as potential tools for the study of orchestral excerpts.
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CHAPTER THREE
THE APPLICATION OF ETUDES TO ORCHESTRAL EXCERPTS
Not only are the etudes discussed in Chapter Two useful on their own terms, they are also applicable to the preparation of orchestral excerpts. Some of these excerpted passages are substantial in length; others are only one or two measures long. At orchestral auditions, players are required to perform an array of slow and fast excerpts.
The tools for preparing slow excerpts already exist; in addition to practicing long tones, nineteenth-century composers provided excellent slow etudes that address the musical and technical issues posed by slower excerpts. Most students in the United States study the etudes of
Brod (ca.1830), Ferling (ca.1844), and Barret (1862), and then move on to orchestral excerpts.
Using nineteenth-century methods and etudes does make sense, for musicians still study and perform nineteenth-century repertoire. Their original intention, however, was to teach the latest key additions to nineteenth-century players, and to provide them with the requisite technique for music of that time, rather than to teach technique to modern players using a modern instrument.
New studies were needed to approach this challenge.
Georges Gillet’s Études pour L’Enseignement supérieur, published in 1909, more closely approaches this goal, because his etudes were written to prepare students for orchestral music’s
“innumerable difficulties.”1 Despite his intentions, the study of additional etudes is necessary to obtain the essential technique for performing all orchestral excerpts. Consider that the following works, all of which contain important passages for oboe, were composed after Gillet’s book was published: Ravel’s Daphnis et Chloe (1909-12) and Le Tombeau de Couperin (1917),
1Georges Gillet, Études pour L’Enseignement supérieur (Paris: Leduc, 1909), ii. 71
Prokofiev’s Classical Symphony (1917), Ibert’s Escales (1922), Bartok’s Concerto for Orchestra
(1943), and all of Stravinsky’s major works. Gillet’s preface also includes an interesting note:
Composers who see my studies will realize that besides the difficulties and passages obtained on the oboe, new fingerings enable one to perform perfectly certain notes and trills which it was heretofore considered impossible to perform.2
This seems to be an invitation to composers to write more challenging music for oboists!
During Georges Gillet’s teaching career at the Paris Conservatory from 1881 to 1918, the primary methods and etudes used in his oboe classes were Barret, Ferling, and Brod.3 When
Gillet students came to the United States to begin performing and teaching in the early twentieth century, they brought with them these etudes they learned at the Paris Conservatory. These etudes were used throughout the twentieth century, both in the United States and in France.
Pierre Pierlot, professor at the Paris Conservatory from 1973 to 1987, stated in a 1983 interview that the Barret Method and the Ferling Studies were still used at the Conservatory.4 Marcel
Tabuteau, and later John de Lancie, at the Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia, also used these etudes. Their value for developing musicianship and technique cannot be denied. The careers of Barret, Brod, and Ferling “encompassed the musical life of the nineteenth century from Beethoven to Brahms and [their] etudes reflect the demands the great composers of their
2Ibid.
3Laila Storch, “Georges Gillet: Master Performer and Teacher,” The Double Reed 19, no. 3 (1996): 24.
4Donald Hefner, “The Tradition of the Paris Conservatory School of Oboe Playing With Special Attention to the Influence of Marcel Tabuteau” (Ph.D. diss., The Catholic University of America, 1984), 80. 72 time placed on the oboe’s role in the orchestra.”5 Their studies are quite useful for preparing for slow excerpts. The means of preparing fast excerpts, however, have been lacking. Twentieth- century French etudes have filled this gap, but are overlooked by players in the United States.
The problem lies in the fact that American oboists in the twentieth century did not compose their own etudes, and lost touch with later French etude output, thus halting the evolution of etudes in
America.
Two surveys of oboe repertoire point to this lack of knowledge of twentieth-century
French etudes in the United States. James Prodan’s Oboe Performance Practices and Teaching in the United States and Canada, published in 1979, reveals the results of a survey that was mailed to professional oboists and educators. The questionnaire inquired about the technical study materials prescribed for undergraduate students, finding that those of Barret and Ferling were most prevalent. For graduate students, the etudes of Gillet, Barret, and Ferling were consistently ranked as the top responses. Loyon and Bozza were mentioned by several respondents, but far less frequently. The studies of Debondue and Lamorlette were each only reported by one respondent. In an article entitled “What Every Oboist Should Know: Methods and Repertoire Selections,” published in The Double Reed in 2001, Susan M. Lundberg reported the results of an internet survey of professional oboists and oboe teachers in the United States.
When asked what methods and studies they used with undergraduate students, the Ferling
Studies and the Barret Method received the majority of votes. Aside from Gillet’s Études, the only twentieth-century French etude books that made the survey were those of Bozza and
Dubois. Unfortunately, these surveys reveal the neglect of the more technically challenging books that were produced in France never became part of mainstream American pedagogy.
5John de Lancie, quoted in liner notes of Marilyn Zupnik, A Guide to Classic Oboe Etudes (sound recording) (Minneapolis, MN: Hummingbird Studios, 1998), iv. 73
This situation is remedied if a link is established between twentieth-century French
etudes and standard orchestral excerpts. Many oboe students in the United States plan to seek
orchestral jobs, and twentieth-century French etudes will prove beneficial in this endeavor. John
de Lancie stated:
No matter what amount of beautiful sound, dynamics, etc. one may possess, if this does not exist on a basis of impeccable “finger-technique,” for anyone trying to pursue a performance career, all the rest will be forgotten.6
In order to be adequately prepared to perform an excerpt, one should practice issues raised by the
excerpt in a more challenging context. By practicing these corresponding etudes, not only is
technique developed “above and beyond” what is required, but also confidence in one’s ability to
perform the excerpt increases with the knowledge that one can play something even more
difficult.
The following is a suggested guide for oboe orchestral excerpt practice, compiled from
the etudes discussed in Chapter Two and the excerpts most common to modern oboe auditions.
Due to their highly technical nature, the etudes of Debondue, Lamorlette, and Loyon were found
to aid the most in excerpt preparation. First is a demonstration of how particular etudes address
the technical challenges of oboe solos in Ravel’s Le Tombeau de Couperin and Debussy’s La
Mer, two of the most frequently requested excerpts at American oboe auditions. Then, challenges common to many excerpts regarding rhythm, articulation, and finger-technique are approached using these etudes as well.
6Ibid.
74
Ravel, Le Tombeau de Couperin
Fig. 1. Ravel, Le Tombeau de Couperin, movement 1
Challenges in this excerpt are numerous, from obtaining even finger-technique, clean articulation, and accurate rhythm to executing grace notes cleanly. The following etudes aid in the preparation of the excerpt.
Although in a different meter than the excerpt, No. 11 from Debondue’s Vingt-Cinq
Études (see Fig. 2) addresses the articulation found in Le Tombeau mm. 7-9 (see Fig. 1). There is a tendency to rush this ‘slur two/tongue one’ articulation. The articulations are varied throughout the etude, which provides good training in keeping steady rhythm despite changing articulations.
75
Fig. 2. Debondue, Vingt-Cinq Études, No. 11
From the same book, No. 19 (see Fig. 3) involves rapid slurring and mixed articulation in
6/16. It presents a chance to gain fluency with tonalities more difficult than the excerpt’s,
rendering the excerpt’s one sharp much easier. Phrases are short, so the key areas change
quickly, offering practice in many tonalities of an articulation found in the excerpt.
Fig. 3. Debondue, Vingt-Cinq Études, No. 19
The seventh etude (see Fig.4) contains mordents on the first note of a group of six, which provides one solution to executing the grace notes in Le Tombeau—as a triplet on the beat.
Fig. 4. Debondue, Vingt-Cinq Études, No. 7
In the next etude (see Fig. 5), as in the excerpt, the beginning of each group of six notes is tongued, but this must not interrupt the direction of the line.
76
Fig. 5. Debondue, Vingt-Cinq Études, No. 15
From Lamorlette’s Douze Études, No. 6 (see Fig. 6) contains a section with sextuplets
that traverse the entire range of the oboe, providing an opportunity to increase one’s comfort
with crossing into the high range, and approaching low notes by leap. The notes of this etude are
more disjunct and chromatic than those of Le Tombeau, making the excerpt seem simple and scalar in comparison.
Fig. 6. Lamorlette, Douze Études, No. 6
In Debondue’s Douze Études, No. 7 (see Fig. 7) is cast in the same meter as the Le
Tombeau excerpt and shares similar articulations, but contains a much more difficult key signature, again resulting in more ease with the excerpt. This etude also involves the negotiation of low notes, making the descent to the low B and C-sharp in Le Tombeau less troublesome.
77
Fig. 7. Debondue, Douze Études, No. 7
The slurred leaps to high and low notes in Debondue’s fifth etude (see Fig. 8) occur within the most difficult tonalities, rendering those in Le Tombeau less difficult. For the oboist, the use of side A-flat is required when leaping to high E-flat in this etude, and may be used in a similar way in the passage at the end of the first movement of Le Tombeau (see Fig. 9).
Fig. 8. Debondue, Douze Études, No. 5
Fig. 9. Ravel, Le Tombeau de Couperin, movement 1
The next two etudes (see Fig. 10 and 11) contain passages that include repeated slurs from low E to low B, which is often a troublesome spot in the excerpt from the opening of Le
Tombeau, mm. 11-13. 78
Fig. 10. Debondue Trente-Deux Études, No. 15
Fig. 11. Debondue, Trente-Deux Études, No. 16
Debussy, La Mer
The second movement of Debussy’s La Mer (see Fig. 12) offers challenges to the oboist
such as finger fluency in the high register, rapid tonguing, and accurate rhythm, but several of
Debondue’s etudes can help.
Fig. 12. Debussy, La Mer, movement 2
79
From Debondue’s Vingt-Cinq Études, No. 11 (see Fig. 13) shares a similar meter and triplet rhythm with the excerpt. In the excerpt, the key signature changes from zero to seven sharps just before the oboe entrance, but this need not be intimidating. Debondue’s etude also shares the same key signature, providing a chance to gain comfort in such a remote key area.
The etude contains long stretches in each of the following key areas: A-sharp minor—B-flat minor—B-flat major—B major—F-sharp major—A-sharp minor. The mixed articulations of the etude can be changed to match those of the excerpt. The etude can also be practiced all tongued to increase one’s articulation speed for La Mer. It contains several passages that go across the
break into the high octave of the oboe, from B-sharp to C-sharp, aiding in the smooth execution
of this technique in mm.5-6 of the excerpt.
Fig. 13. Debondue, Vingt-Cinq Études, No. 11
The fifth etude (see Fig. 14) is filled with grace notes that occur before the beat and move by step to the following note. The grace notes in the excerpt are potentially tricky due to the slur from high D-sharp to C-sharp, a difficult interval to slur cleanly for the oboist, but the etude provides several opportunities to practice this difficult interval.
80
Fig. 14. Debondue, Vingt-Cinq Études, No. 5
Later in the second movement of La Mer, the oboist has a passage replete with trills (see
Fig. 15). No. 24 from Loyon’s Trente-Deux Études (see Fig. 16) aids in the preparation of the tricky passage from La Mer. The key signature of the excerpt contains only four sharps but suggests the tonality of G-sharp minor, which is the key of this etude. The trills in the etude end
on the same note on which they started as they do in the excerpt, despite different notation. The
dynamics under the etude’s trills can be switched to match those of the excerpt.
Fig. 15. Debussy, La Mer, movement 2
Fig. 16. Loyon, Trente-Deux Études, No. 24 81
As the preceding samples demonstrate, twentieth-century etudes can aid in the
preparation of individual excerpts. Etudes also offer the chance to practice certain issues
separate from their context in orchestral excerpts. Many excerpts share difficulties in the realms
of rhythm, articulation, and finger-technique.
Rhythm
Technical challenges found in excerpts often involve accurate execution of a certain
rhythm, and articulations can increase the difficulty. Practicing the rhythm separate from its
context in the passage can help one master it.
This is a difficult rhythm to perform, especially when it is continually repeated in a
passage. The third note of this rhythm has to be in perfect place. The following excerpts contain
continuing appearances of this rhythm.
Fig. 17. Ravel, Le Tombeau de Couperin, movement 2
82
Fig. 18. Beethoven Symphony No. 7, movement 1
Fig. 19. Handel, Rinaldo, Overture (This excerpt is often required on auditions for opera orchestras.)
Loyon’s eleventh etude from Trente-Deux Études (see Fig. 20) features this rhythm. This etude can be practiced as written, and then with all the notes detached to match the articulation found in the excerpts above.
Fig. 20. Loyon, Trente-Deux Études, No. 11 83
From Debondue’s Vingt-Cinq Études, No. 12 (see Fig. 21) also provides practice of this rhythm. Compared to the excerpts, this etude contains the rhythm within a more complex rhythmical context, and within more difficult key areas. Thus, after practicing this etude the excerpts become simpler.
Fig. 21. Debondue, Vingt-Cinq Études, No. 12
Proper placement of the sixteenth note in this rhythmic pattern is often open to
interpretation and depends on the context in which it is found. Rapid tonguing in this rhythmic
pattern can be difficult. This rhythm is found in the following excerpts:
Fig. 22. Mendelssohn, Symphony No. 3, movement 2
84
Fig. 23. Schubert, Symphony No. 9, movement 2
Fig. 24. Rossini, Italian in Algiers, Overture
Fig. 25. Berlioz, The Damnation of Faust, Menuet des Follets 85
From Loyon’s Trente-Deux Études, No. 21 (see Fig. 26) provides good practice of the
rhythm on the same note. From Debondue’s Trente-Deux Études, No. 11 (see Fig. 27) contains this rhythm exclusively, and provides a mixture of conjunct and disjunct motion, rather than remaining on the same note.
Fig. 26. Loyon, Trente-Deux Études, No. 21
Fig. 27. Debondue, Trente-Deux Études, No. 11
Lamorlette’s twelfth etude (see Fig. 28) was written for the practice of double tonguing, and offers this rhythm to develop that technique, which then may be applied to the excerpts.
Fig. 28. Lamorlette, Douze Études, No. 12
86
Many players have a tendency to rush this rhythm, or to give it improper emphasis on the
eighth note instead of the first sixteenth note. The rhythm is found in the excerpt from Berlioz’s
Damnation of Faust (see Fig. 25), and is also found in the following excerpts.
Fig. 29. Ravel, Le Tombeau de Couperin, movement 4
Fig. 30. Beethoven, Symphony No. 3, movement 4
Fig. 31. Stravinsky, Petroushka, Russian Dance 87
Although the melodic and articulation pattern differs, No. 29 (see Fig. 32) from Loyon’s
Trente-Deux Études provides a good introduction to the rhythm because the sixteenth rest results
in the rhythm sounding clearly.
Fig. 32. Loyon, Trente-Deux Études, No. 29
From Debondue’s Trente-Deux Études, No. 9 (see Fig. 33) contains rhythms other than
the highlighted one, offering practice in switching back and forth. The etude cycles through
many tonalities so that the rhythm may be practiced in a variety of key areas. The rhythm is
slurred in this etude, as it is in the Berlioz excerpt, but can be changed to match the articulation
of the other excerpts.
Fig. 33. Debondue, Trente-Deux Études, No. 9
Debondue’s tenth etude from Douze Études (see Fig. 34) also contains this rhythm.
Though it is written in a slightly different notation in this etude, but has the same result. The articulation is exclusively staccato but again, this can be altered to match the excerpts. This 88
etude offers practice of the rhythm in the difficult tonalities of E-flat minor, E major, D-flat
major, B-flat minor, and G-flat minor, (causing the tonalities of the excerpts to seem easier).
Fig. 34. Debondue, Douze Études, No. 10
This rhythm is found in the third movement of Tchaikovsky’s Symphony No. 4 (see Fig.
35). Not only is the rhythm itself tricky to execute, but its articulation can be problematic to play
accurately.
Fig. 35. Tchaikovsky, Symphony No. 4, movement 3
From Debondue’s Vingt-Cinq Études, No. 14 (see Fig. 36) addresses the rhythm in more difficult tonalities than the excerpt’s A major, thus the fingerings are often much more difficult.
For example, in m. 3 of the etude, executing the fingerings cleanly is challenging, particularly 89
the A-sharp to B, and makes the fingerings used in the excerpt seem effortless. The articulation
can be changed to match that of the excerpt.
Fig. 36. Debondue, Vingt-Cinq Études, No. 14
Lamorlette’s eleventh etude (see Fig. 37) also includes the highlighted rhythm, but within a more difficult rhythmical context. In the excerpt, the notes of the rhythm are tonal and move by step, but in Lamorlette’s etude they are often chromatic and move by leap. Practicing this etude minimizes the challenge of the excerpt.
Fig. 37. Lamorlette, Douze Études, No. 11
Dotted rhythms v. triplets
The challenge of this combination of rhythms is executing the dotted-eighth figures correctly when they are in such close proximity to triplet figures. The following excerpts contain this rhythm. 90
Fig. 38. Strauss, Don Juan
Fig. 39. Rossini, Italian in Algiers, Overture
From Debondue’s Vingt-Cinq Études, the opening of No. 2 (see Fig. 40) provides an
opportunity to become accustomed to the dotted-eighth rhythm in the context of triplets, as it is
found in Don Juan. From the same collection, No. 16 (see Fig. 41) is in 5/4, increasing the
challenge of accurate rhythmic execution. Articulations are varied throughout the etude,
providing good practice of the rhythm with mixed articulations, but they can also be altered to
match those of the excerpts.
Fig. 40. Debondue, Vingt-Cinq Études, No. 2 91
Fig. 41. Debondue, Vingt-Cinq Études, No. 16
Other duple v. triple rhythms
Passages that contain combinations of duple and triple rhythms require an accurate distinction between the two. The following excerpts contain some degree of friction between duple and triple rhythms.
Fig. 42. Debussy, La Mer, movement 2
Fig. 43. Rimsky-Korsakov, Scheherazade, movement 2
Fig. 44. Rossini, Italian in Algiers, Overture 92
Fig. 45. Rossini, La Gazza Ladra, Overture
Many twentieth-century etudes offer ample practice of duple versus triple rhythms, and
within harder contexts than the excerpts themselves.
From Loyon’s Trente-Deux Études, No. 22 (see Fig. 46), in 9/16 meter, contains
alternating groups of three sixteenth notes and four sixteenth notes. No. 10 (see Fig. 47) cycles
through all major and minor arpeggios, with each measure containing groups of four sixteenth
notes and sextuplets. No. 17 (see Fig. 48), consisting primarily of sextuplets, has the occasional
duple rhythm to disrupt the rhythmic regularity.
Fig. 46. Loyon, Trente-Deux Études: No. 22
Fig. 47. Loyon, Trente-Deux Études, No. 10
93
Fig. 48. Loyon, Trente-Deux Études, No. 17
From Debondue’s Douze Études, No. 8 (see Fig. 49) provides good practice of switching
between sixteenth notes in groups of three and in groups of two. No. 9 (see Fig. 50) contains a
similar rhythmic challenge, but is even tricker because the triplet sixteenths do not always occur
in the same part of the measure.
Fig. 49. Debondue, Douze Études, No. 8
Fig. 50. Debondue, Douze Études, No. 9 94
In the eleventh etude (see Fig. 51), the rhythmic pattern remains virtually consistent throughout, but the meter itself contributes to its difficulty.
Fig. 51. Debondue, Douze Études, No. 11
Articulation
Articulations are another facet of excerpts that can pose problems.
Releasing ties accurately
Many players have a tendency to release ties too late or too early. Their accurate execution requires careful subdivision. The following excerpts contain this issue.
Fig. 52. Smetana, The Bartered Bride, Overture
Fig. 53. Mozart, Symphony No. 41, movement 4 95
Fig. 54. Rossini, La Gazza Ladra, Overture
Fig. 55. Mendelssohn, Symphony No. 3, movement 2
Fig. 56. Beethoven, Symphony No. 6, movement 3
In Debondue’s Trente-Deux Études, No. 10 (see Fig. 57) provides excellent help with the issue of releasing ties. The rhythmic and articulation pattern remain constant, with the exception of mm.3-4, when the notes after the tie are triplets instead of sixteenth notes. In No. 13 (see Fig.
58), all of the notes following ties are tongued, as they are found in the Mendelssohn and Mozart excerpts. 96
Fig. 57. Debondue, Trente-Deux Études, No. 10
Fig. 58. Debondue, Trente-Deux Études No. 13
In Lamorlette’s sixth etude (see Fig. 59), releasing ties occurs with a rhythm similar to that found in Smetana’s excerpt. From Loyon’s Trente-Deux Études, No. 32 (see Fig. 60) provides a triplet context for the issue of releasing ties, similar to the excerpt from Beethoven’s
Symphony No. 6.
Fig. 59. Lamorlette, Douze Études, No. 6
97
Fig. 60. Loyon, Trente-Deux Études, No. 32
Rapid tonguing in a duple meter
The development of fast tonguing technique (single or double) is an ongoing endeavor for most oboists. Many excerpts require fast tonguing, including the following.
Fig. 61. Rossini, La Scala di Seta, Overture
98
Fig. 62. Mendelssohn, Symphony No. 3, movement 2
Fig. 63. Stravinsky, Petrouchka
Fig. 64. Smetana, The Bartered Bride, Overture
99
Fig. 65. Berlioz, The Damnation of Faust, Menuet des Follets
Fig. 66. Handel, Rinaldo, No. 29 Sinfonia 100
The following two etudes (see Fig. 67 and 68) were designed to develop the technique of
double-tonguing, which can then be applied to excerpts requiring high levels of speed that single
tonguing cannot accommodate.
From Debondue’s Vingt-Cinq Études, No. 24 (see Fig. 67) is a study of double-tonguing in simple tonalities with primarily scalar motion. Due to the relative ease of the notes, this provides an opportunity to gain speed of single- or double-tonguing.
Fig. 67. Debondue, Vingt-Cinq Études, No. 24
Lamorlette’s final etude in Douze Études (see Fig. 68) is preceded by exercises to teach the technique of double-tonguing. The etude is cast in several sections, each with its own metronome markings and characteristic rhythms. Whereas movement was primarily stepwise in
Debondue’s etude, movement in Lamorlette’s etude is frequently by leap, and not always tonal
(i.e., not predictable to the ear).
Fig. 68. Lamorlette, Douze Études, No. 12 101
Lamorlette’s tenth etude (see Fig. 69) provides perpetual tonguing in the difficult key
areas of F-sharp major and E-flat minor. Thus, fast tonguing and finger-technique in difficult
tonalities are addressed simultaneously.
Fig. 69. Lamorlette, Douze Études, No. 10
From Debondue’s Douze Études, No. 10 (see Fig. 70) provides practice of rapid tonguing
of mixed rhythms in difficult tonalities After practicing this etude the mixed rhythms of the
Berlioz excerpt (see Fig. 65) seem easier. Also, the excerpt’s key signature of two sharps is
rendered easy after the etude’s six flats.
Fig. 70. Debondue, Douze Études, No. 10
Some of the leaps and scales in No. 3 from Debondue’s Trente-Deux Études (see Fig. 71)
resemble those of the La Scala di Seta excerpt (see Fig. 61). Since key areas change every four measures in this etude and cycle through some difficult tonalities, La Scala’s tonality of C major 102
seems even simpler. The etude even concludes with a C major scale down to low C, as does the
excerpt.
Fig. 71. Debondue, Trente-Deux Études, No. 3
From Loyon’s Trente-Deux Études, No. 13 (see Fig. 72) offers practice of another rhythm
found in several of the tonguing excerpts.
Fig. 72. Loyon, Trente-Deux Études, No. 13
Finger-Technique
Slurring sixteenth notes at a fast tempo
In the following excerpts, a solid finger-technique is necessary to execute the passages correctly. Although articulation is always a concern, the majority of the notes in the excerpts are under slurs, so that synchronized moving of the fingers is of paramount importance.
103
Fig. 73. Mussorgsky, Pictures at an Exhibition, Tuileries
Fig. 74. Verdi, Otello
Fig. 75. Mendelssohn, Symphony No. 3, movement 2 104
From Debondue’s Trente-Deux Études, No. 28 (see Fig. 76) has the same key signature
as the Mussorgsky excerpt. Practicing finger-technique in the same key area as the excerpt is
important, because each tonality poses its own problems for the oboist’s fingers. This etude also
contains the same groups of four slurred sixteenth notes as the Mussorgsky excerpt.
Fig. 76. Debondue, Trente-Deux Études, No. 28
The sixth etude (see Fig. 77) is a study of continuous sixteenth notes. The passage in F major offers a chance to practice the use of the side F key on the oboe, which is the preferred fingering used in the F major excerpt from Mendelssohn’s Symphony No. 3.
Fig. 77. Debondue, Trente-Deux Études, No. 6
105
One of the challenges of the excerpt from Mendelssohn’s Symphony No. 3 is obtaining
clean slurs from A to C, and from C to A. Debondue’s fifth etude (see Fig. 78) begins and ends
in F major and includes arpeggios that contain the same problem.
Fig. 78. Debondue, Trente-Deux Études, No. 5
From Debondue’s Vingt-Cinq Études, No. 22 (see Fig. 79) provides good practice for the ascending and descending arpeggios found in the excerpt from Verdi’s Otello (see Fig. 74).
Although the articulations in the etude are varied, they can be changed to match those of the
excerpt. In the difficult tonalities of the etude, the oboist is often required to use side D-sharp,
which is also must be used in the Otello excerpt.
Fig. 79. Debondue, Vingt-Cinq Études, No. 22
106
Many etudes from the books being discussed provide the opportunity to develop rapid,
accurate finger-technique. Improving this facet of playing in general will make excerpts more
manageable. The following is a sample.
From Loyon’s Trente-Deux Études, No. 5 (see Fig. 80), marked allegro furioso and 160
to the eighth note, improves facility with its short scalar and arpeggiated figures. No. 23 (see
Fig. 81) provides practice of thirds in several difficult key areas.
Fig. 80. Loyon, Trente-Deux Études, No. 5
Fig. 81. Loyon, Trente-Deux Études, No. 23
Practicing perpetual motion in difficult tonalities helps one gain overall confidence with finger-technique. Lamorlette’s fourth etude (see Fig. 82) offers this chance, with its continuous
32nds that cycle through F-sharp major, D-sharp minor, B major, G-sharp minor, C-sharp minor, and A major before returning to F-sharp major to conclude.
107
Fig. 82. Lamorlette, Douze Études, No. 4
Slurring triplets at a fast tempo
The opening of Strauss’s Don Juan (see Fig. 83) is just one example of the necessity of
acquiring this technique.
Fig. 83. Strauss, Don Juan
Lamorlette’s sixth etude (see Fig. 84) aids in the practice of the excerpt. The middle section of this etude contains the same key signature of the Don Juan excerpt, thus providing similar problems in the realm of finger-technique. Slurs across the break to high notes are one of 108 the difficulties of the excerpt. The etude contains these as well, but in a less tonal context than in the excerpt.
Fig. 84. Lamorlette, Douze Études, No. 6
In order to develop finger technique for slurring triplets in fast tempos, the following etudes provide general practice.
Loyon’s first etude (see Fig. 85) contains continuous sextuplets that cycle through many tonalities. The high and low ranges of the oboe are covered thoroughly. Lamorlette’s fifth etude
(see Fig. 86) contains slurred triplets in several tonalities. Loyon’s tenth etude (see Fig. 87) is excellent for developing facility in all major and minor arpeggios.
Fig. 85. Loyon, Trente-Deux Études, No. 1
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Fig. 86. Lamorlette, Douze Études, No. 5
Fig. 87. Loyon, Trente-Deux Études, No. 10
Octaves
In the first movement of Ravel’s Piano Concerto the oboist must play the following difficult passage (see Fig. 88).
Fig. 88. Ravel, Piano Concerto, movement 1
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Lamorlette embeds this excerpt in No. 11 (see Fig. 89). He preceded it with several measures of octaves in mixed rhythms, so that when the player reaches the excerpt, its straightforward thirty-second notes are easy compared to what came before them.
Fig. 89. Lamorlette, Douze Études, No. 11
No. 26 (see Fig. 90), from Loyon’s Trente-Deux Études, is another useful etude to prepare the excerpt from Ravel’s Piano Concerto. While the excerpt contains ascending chromatic octaves in one rhythm, the etude presents ascending and descending octaves in two different rhythms, moving both chromatically and diatonically.
Fig. 90. Loyon, Trente-Deux Études, No. 26 111
Conclusion
As the preceding examples demonstrate, twentieth-century French etudes can assist enormously in the preparation of orchestral excerpts. While the nineteenth-century etudes of
Barret, Brod, and Ferling are very familiar to oboe students in the United States, they do not provide the requisite technique necessary for proficiency with technically challenging excerpts.
The etudes of Loyon, Debondue, and Lamorlette provide an answer to this gap in training and stand as complements to the traditional nineteenth-century studies. To succeed as a twenty-first century oboist, one must acquire the skills provided in these relevant and valuable studies.
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CONCLUSION
Pedagogical materials for oboe have been shaped by the environment in which they were written. Seventeenth- and eighteenth-century tutors catered to their amateur audience with collections of simple tunes. Nineteenth-century methods and etudes reflected a more specialized audience with their progressive nature, and made reference to the latest mechanical developments of the oboe. Twentieth-century etudes reflected developments in twentieth- century music, and satisfied the need for studies to equip oboists for difficult orchestral repertoire.
Oboe students in the United States today inherited a rich collection of pedagogical materials from France. Unfortunately, these ended with Gillet’s 1909 publication. As I demonstrated in Chapter Two, an etude repertoire exists that was produced in France throughout the twentieth century but not transferred to the United States. That the most prevalent etudes in use in the United States today were written for the oboe in different stages of mechanical development is troubling, and I hope I have remedied this situation by exposing other options found in the twentieth-century French etude literature. Many oboe students in the United States plan to seek orchestral jobs. The etudes discussed in Chapter Three may be used to prepare oboists for orchestral auditions.
Hopefully, American students will continue to tote the thick yellow Barret book to and from the practice room, but supplement this with twentieth-century French etudes. Only the latter can equip them for the increased technical demands and musical trends that the twentieth century ushered in, as well as prepare them to win an orchestral job.
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MUSICAL MATERIALS: NINETEENTH AND TWENTIETH CENTURIES
Bajeux, Pierre, comp. Traits Difficiles, tirés d’œuvres symphoniques et dramatiques pour hautbois. 4 vols. Paris: Leduc, 1943.
Barret, Apollon Marie-Rose. Complete Method for the Oboe. London: Jullien, 1850. 2d ed., London: Lafleur and Son, 1862.
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Brod, Henri. Études et Sonates pour Hautbois. Revues et Annotées par P. Bajeux. 2 vols. Paris: Leduc, 1951.
______. Méthode de Hautbois. Edition revue par G. Gillet pour servir à l’étude du Hautbois modifié tel qu’il ets adapté dans les Conservatories. Paris: Henry Lemoine, 1963.
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______. Quinze Études d’après les Sonates pour Violon Seul de J.S. Bach. Paris: Leduc, 1967.
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Capelle, Ferdinand. Vingt Grandes Études d’après Sivori, A. Charpentier, Rode, Fiorillo. 2 vols. Paris: Leduc, 1943.
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______. Le Hautboïste: Méthode Pratique et Progressive. Paris: Éditions M. Combre, 1974.
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______. Cinquante Études-Déchiffrages. Paris: Leduc, 1967.
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______. Quarante-Huit Études-Déchiffrages. Paris: Leduc, 1970.
______. Trente-Deux Études. Paris: Leduc, 1952.
______. Vingt-Cinq Études. Paris: Leduc, 1955.
______. Vingt-Cinq Études-Déchiffrages. Paris: Leduc, 1967.
______. Vingt-Quatre Études Mélodiques. Paris: Leduc, 1952.
Delcambre, Bernard. Le Hautbois Facile. 2 vols. Paris: Billaudot, 1997.
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______. 28 Études pour Hautbois sur les Modes à Transposotions limitées d’Olivier Messaien. Paris: Billaudot, 1979.
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Lamorlette, Roland. Douze Études. Paris: Leduc, 1954.
Lamotte, Antony. Dix-Huit Études pour hautbois ou saxophone. Transcrites d’après Mazas, Kreutzer, Rode, Schall, et Bruni. Paris: Billaudot, 1905.
Loyon, Ernest. Trente-Deux Études. Paris: Billaudot, 1925.
Luttmann, Reinhard. Extraits de la Méthode Complète de Hautbois de A.M.R. Barret. 2 vols. Paris: Leduc, 1948.
______. Vingt et Une Études Dodécaphoniques. Paris: Leduc, 1969.
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Perreau, Gérard. 20 Caprices pour Hautbois d’après Fr. Fiorillo. Paris: Billaudot, 1973.
Remaud, Guy. Approche de la Musique Contemporaine pour Hautbois. 3 vols. Paris: Billaudot, 1988-92.
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APPENDIX
Prizewinning Oboists and Etude Composers at the Paris Conservatory
NAME 1ST 2ND OTHER TEACHER PEDAGOGICAL BOOK PUBL. PRIZE PRIZE YEAR Georges Gillet 1869 1-1868 Colin Études pour L’Enseignement supérieur 1909 Antony Lamotte 1881 Colin Dix-Huit Études 1905 1885 2-1883 Gillet Méthode Nouvelle du Hautbois n.d. Louis Bas 1-1884 Étude de l’orchestre 1911 1893 2-1891 Gillet La Technique du Hautbois 1936-37 Louis Bleuzet 1-1892 Arthur Bridet 1893 1892 Gillet L’Education du Hautboïste 1928 Roland Lamorlette 1911 1910 1-1909 Gillet Douze Études 1954 Albert Debondue 1919 1914 Gillet Vingt-Quatre Études Mélodiques 1952 Trente-Deux Études 1952 Vingt-Cinq Études 1955 Cent Exercises 1961 Douze Études 1961 Vingt-Cinq Études-Déchiffrages 1967 Cinquante Études-Déchiffrages 1967 Quarante-Huit Études Déchiffrages 1970 Pierre Bajeux 1925 1923 1-1922 Bleuzet Traits Difficiles 1943 Pierre Cruchon 1930 1929 2-1928 Bleuzet Méthode de Hautbois 1954 André Caurette 1937 1936 1-1935 Bleuzet Le Hautboïste 1974 18 Études 1981 Raymond Niverd 1941 1940 1-1939 Bleuzet Méthode de Hautbois 1973 Bajeux 2-1953 Bajeux Vingt et Une Études Dodecaphoniques 1969 Reinhard Luttmann 1-1955 Andre Cailliéret 1957 1956 1-1955 Bajeux 20 Études 1965 Quinze Études 1967 Heinz Holliger 1959 Bajeux Pro Musica Nova 1973 Lamorlette Bernard Delcambre 1961 1960 1-1959 Baudo Le Hautbois Facile 1997 Hautbois et Musique 2002 Gérard Perreau 1963 1961 1-1959 Baudo 20 Caprices 1973 Guy Remaud 1969 1968 1-1967 Baudo Ma Première Année de Hautbois 1985 Approche de la Musique Contemporaine 1988-92 A Precise Method 2000 1969 1968 2-1966 Baudo L’A.B.C. du Jeune Hautboïste 1985 Michel Giot 1-1967 Gilles Silvestrini 1985 Pierlot Six Études 1997