HUMBERT LUCARELLI: OBOE ARTIST

D.M.A. Document

Presented in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Musical Arts in the Graduate School of The Ohio State University

By

Bradley Michael Walsh B.M., M.M.

Graduate Program in Music

The Ohio State University

2011

Document Committee:

Professor Robert Sorton, Advisor

Dr. Daryl Kinney

Professor Karen Pierson

Professor Mark Rudoff

Copyright by

Bradley Michael Walsh

2011

ABSTRACT

Humbert Lucarelli is recognized as one of the world’s leading oboe soloists of the twentieth century. The New Groves Dictionary of Music and Musicians, lists Mr.

Lucarelli as one of America’s most renowned oboists. His career has spanned six decades, and in that time, he has forged a unique career that is rare in American oboe playing. To his credit, he has recorded hundreds of works and has had commissions and premiere performances of over one hundred compositions for solo oboe by many celebrated composers. Lucarelli’s performances have been reviewed in over two hundred newspapers around the world. Since 1968, Lucarelli has also been active as a teacher at The Hartt School of Music in West Hartford, Connecticut. He taught at other prestigious schools of music in the United States, at summer festivals, and at music schools throughout the world. An advocate of the oboe as a solo instrument, Mr.

Lucarelli has also been responsible for creating competitions for young professional oboists.

This document provides biographical information on Mr. Lucarelli’s career and how it evolved into something other than the orchestral career for which he trained.

Bypassing offers from the Baltimore Symphony, Indianapolis Symphony and the

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Houston Symphony, Mr. Lucarelli created a career as the first leading solo oboe artist in

America. Documented here are insights into his pedagogical practices. This document provides historical background for the oboe concerto composed for him by John

Corigliano. Further, discrepancies that exist between Mr. Lucarelli’s premiere recording of the concerto and the published edition by G. Schirmer are outlined.

Additionally, a listing of Lucarelli’s recorded works is provided. The discography is arranged in chronological order and provides detailed information on each recording.

Finally, the document contains a list of his published performance editions and transcripts of personal interviews between the author and Mr. Lucarelli.

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Acknowledgements

I would like to thank Mr. Lucarelli for his cooperation in this project. Without his willingness to help me, this document would not have been possible. I would also like to thank him for access to programs, recordings, pictures, oboe manuscripts and generosity of his time to interview him. Lastly, I would like to thank Mr. Lucarelli for inspiring me musically from early on in my childhood. Without your recordings to listen to, I doubt that I would have ever continued playing the oboe. I am always amazed by your modesty and generosity toward others.

I would like to thank my wife for giving her support throughout my degree and providing me with encouragement when things felt impossible. I would also like to give her an enormous thank you for taking care of our three young children when I needed time to work. You were always there for me and for that I love you. I would also like to thank my children for inspiring me to achieve.

I would like to thank Joan Voveris (Aunt) who has had an integral role in my music endeavors. Without your financial support and your belief in me I would have never made it. I would also like to thank my mother for introducing me to the oboe and the recordings of Mr. Lucarelli at an early age. I would like to thank my father who more

iv than anyone has taught me the value of hard work and determination. I would like to thank God for getting me through my entire education.

I would like to thank the following teachers who along the way showed genuine interest in me and pushed me to excel: Ellen Flint, Jerome Campbell, Thomas Heinze,

Mark Nelson, Richard Lundahl, Linda Willis, and Joe Kreines.

Lastly, I would like to thank my committee members for their willingness to help me and participate in my education. Special thanks to Professor Sorton for helping me throughout this degree and providing me with a graduate teaching position. I am always amazed by your talents as a teacher and oboist. I would like to thank Professor

Pierson for her encouragement and willingness to take me on as a bassoon student. I would like to thank Dr. Kinney and Professor Rudoff for their willingness to participate in my education.

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VITA

1976………………………………………………………………………………………………...Born, Champaign, IL

1998……………………………………………………………………………………………….……Bachelor of Music Music Education Wilkes University

1997-1998………………………………………………………………….……………………………….Oboe Faculty Wilkes University Community Division

2000………………..……………………………………………………………………………………..Master of Music Hartt School of Music

1999-2000……………………………………………………………………………………….…..….....Oboe Faculty Hartt School Community Division

1998-2000…..……………………………………………………………………….……….……Graduate Assistant Hartt School of Music

2001-Present…………………………………………………….……………...... Second Oboe/English Horn Central Ohio Symphony Orchestra

2001-2005……………………………………………………………………………………….……………………….Extra Mansfield Symphony Orchestra

2003-2008……………………………………………………………………………………..……..…Music Educator Columbus City Schools

2005-2006……………………………………………………………………………….……………………………….Extra Columbus Bach Ensemble

2005-Present………………………………………………………….…………………………………..Second Oboe Newark-Granville Symphony Orchestra

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2006-Present……………………………………………………………….……….…….…………….Principal Oboe Southeast Ohio Symphony Orchestra

2008-2009…………………………………………………………………………..Graduate Teaching Associate School of Music The Ohio State University

2008-Present………………………………………………………………………………………….……..Utility Oboe Springfield Symphony Orchestra

2008-Present…………………………………………………………………………………….……..Music Educator Columbus City Schools

2009…………………………………………………………………………………………………...... ………………Extra Roanoke Symphony Orchestra

FIELDS OF STUDY

Major Field: Music

Area of Emphasis: Oboe Performance

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TABLE OF CONTENTS

Abstract………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………ii

Acknowledgements…………………………………………………………………………………………………….iv

Vita…………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………....vi

List of Illustrations……………………………..………………………………………………………………….…...x

List of Figures……………………………………..……….……………………………………………………...... xii

Chapter One: Introduction…………………………………………………………………………………………..1

Biographic Summary…………………………………………………………….………………1

Need for Study……………………………………………………………………………………..4

Purpose of Study………………………………………………………………………………….6

Review of Literature……………………………………………………………….……….…..6

Definition of Terms………………………………………………………………….…………..9

Limitations of the Study……..………………………………………………………………10

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Chapter 2: Childhood and Early Career…………………………………………………………………………11

Chapter 3: Solo Career………………………………………………………………..………….…………………...23

Chapter 4: Corigliano Concerto History and Background….……………..……….………………….31

Chapter 5: Performance Discrepancies…..………………………………………..……….…………………41

Chapter 6: Recording Solo Artist…………………………………………………………….….…………………50

Chapter 7: Educator…………………………………………………………………………………….….……………55

Chapter 8: Conclusion………………………………………………………………………………….………….……61

Bibliography……………………………………………………………………………………………………………..….67

Appendix: A Humbert Lucarelli’s Solo and Chamber Music Discography…………….….…69

Appendix: B Humbert Lucarelli’s International Publishing Editions ……………….….………88

Appendix: C Personal Interview Transcripts with Humbert Lucarelli……………………..….90

Interview with Humbert Lucarelli November 13, 2010…………………………………………...... 90

Interview Two with Humbert Lucarelli, November 14, 2010……………………….…….…...102

Interview Three with Humbert Lucarelli, November 15, 2010………………………………….…113

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LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

Illustration 1: Lucarelli with the Florida Symphony……………………………………………..……….17

Illustration 2: Lucarelli’s Tully Hall Concert Advertisement………………..…………………..……26

Illustration 3: Lucarelli practicing with rock band……………………………….……………………….28

Illustration 4: Lucarelli performing with rock band……………………………….…………………….28

Illustration 5: Program of Bert Lucarelli and Musemorphoses……………….…………………...29

Illustration 6: Program of World Premiere of Oboe Concerto………………….…….…….……..37

Illustration 7: Program Notes of World Premiere of Oboe Concerto…………..…….…………38

Illustration 8: Program of Lucarelli with Martha Graham Dance Company.……..….………40

Illustration 9: Front View of the Puff…………………………………………………………….………...…..59

Illustration 10: Side View of the Puff……………………………………………………………….…….…….59

Illustration 11: Front View of Puff Early 1970’s……………………………………………….……….….60

Illustration 12: Side Angle of Puff……………………………………………………………………………….60

Illustration 13: Front of concert flyer……………………………………………..………………………….63 x

Illustration 14: Back of concert flyer………………………...... 64

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LIST OF FIGURES

Figure 1: Mvt. One, mm. 45 of Oboe Manuscript………………………………………………….………43

Figure 2: Mvt. One, mm. 45 of G. Schirmer Edition…….………………………………………………..43

Figure 3: Mvt. One, mm. 45 of Score…………………………………………………………………………….43

Figure 4: Mvt. One, mm. 169 of Oboe Manuscript……………………………………………………….44

Figure 5: Mvt. One, mm. 169 of G. Schirmer Edition…………………………………………………….45

Figure 6: Mvt. One, mm. 169 of Score………………………………………………………………………….45

Figure 7: Mvt. One, mm. 209 of Oboe Manuscript……………………………………………………….45

Figure 8: Mvt. One, mm. 209 of G. Schirmer Edition………………………………………………..….45

Figure 9: Mvt. Three, GS Page 9, System 4, mm.2……………………………………………………..…47

Figure 10: Mvt. Three, GS Page 9, System 4, mm.2 of Oboe Manuscript……………………..47

Figure 11: Mvt. Three, GS Page 14, System 3……………………………………………………………....48

Figure 12: Mvt. Three, GS Page 14, System 3 of Oboe Manuscript……………………..……….48

Figure13: Mvt. Five, mm.50 of Oboe Manuscript…………………………………………………………49

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Figure 14: Mvt. Five, mm.50 of G. Schirmer Edition ……………………………………………………49

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CHAPTER 1

Introduction

Biographical Overview

Humbert John Lucarelli, also known to audience members as Bert Lucarelli, has had a long and distinguished career. The New Groves Dictionary of Music and Musicians lists Mr. Lucarelli as one of America’s most renowned oboists. By the age of nineteen he was performing professionally as the principal oboist of the Chicago Lyric Opera and as a substitute musician with the Chicago Symphony. As a young musician, he attained additional positions as principal oboist of the Florida Symphony Orchestra and the Grant

Park Symphony in Chicago. He toured with Igor Stravinsky and played English horn with the American Symphony Orchestra under the direction of Leopold Stokowski. For ten years, he played second oboe in the original Bach Aria Group. Mr. Lucarelli has appeared with numerous groups including, I Solisti Veneti, Lehigh Valley Chamber Orchestra,

London’s Orchestra of St. John’s, Smith Square; Royal Ballet, Manhattan Chamber

Orchestra, Orpheus Chamber Orchestra, Orquestra Sinphonica Do Estado De Sao Paulo,

Philharmonia Virtuosi, Scranton Chamber Orchestra, and the North Eastern

Pennsylvania Philharmonic.

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Mr. Lucarelli has been featured in numerous summer festivals including, Angel

Fire, Aspen Music Festival, Chautauqua, Marblehead, Martha’s Vineyard, Music

Mountain, Newport, Victoria International Music festival, and Il Festival Eleazar de

Carvalho in Brazil.

Mr. Lucarelli has had an extensive career as a chamber musician, most notably with string quartets. He has performed with Trio Bell’Arte, American, Amernet,

Audubon, Biava, Cassatt, Chester, Colorado, Emerson, Lark, Leontovich, Manhattan,

Miami, Muir, Panocha, and the Philadelphia string quartets.

Throughout Mr. Lucarelli’s career he has performed under the baton of some of the world’s most celebrated conductors including, Kazuyoshi Akiyama, Leonard

Bernstein, Arthur Fiedler, Lukas Foss, Kiril Kondrahin, Robert Kraft, Josef Krips, James

Levine, Peter Maag, Jean Martinon, Dimitri Mitropoulos, George Pretre, Fritz Reiner,

Artur Rodinsky, Julius Rudel, Tuillio Serafin, Robert Shaw, Sir George Solti, Leopold

Stokowski, Igor Stravinsky, and Alfred Wallenstein.

As a solo artist, Mr. Lucarelli has recorded a vast number of works on the following labels, Albany Records, Crown Publishers, Jonella Records, Heartland Music,

RCA Victor, Crystal Records, Koch International, Lyrichord, MCA Classics, Musical

Heritage Society, Newport Classics, Norada Lotus, Opus One, Pantheon, Stadivari, and

Well-Tempered Productions. Mr. Lucarelli has commissioned and given American and world premieres of over one hundred works of contemporary oboe music by many well- known composers including, Robert Baksa, Luciano Berio, Michael Colgrass, John

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Corigliano, Edward Diamente, Arnold Franchetti, Stephen Gryc, Paul Moravec, Philip

Ramey, Ned Rorem, Howard Rovics, Peter Schickele, Conrad Sousa, Ezra Sims, Robert

Starer, and Francis Thorne.

As an educator, Mr. Lucarelli has been Professor of Oboe at the Hartt School of

Music since 1968. He has taught oboe at the Aaron Copland School of Music at Queens

College, City University of New York; Purchase College, State University of New York;

Brooklyn College, City University of New York; and New York University. Mr. Lucarelli has taught master classes throughout the world including North America, South

America, Europe, Australia and Asia. In 2001, Mr. Lucarelli was the first American oboist to be invited to perform and teach at the Beijing Conservatory in the Peoples Republic of China. His impact in the world of oboe playing has been far reaching. Mr. Lucarelli’s prominence has attracted students from across the world many of whom became successful musicians.

Outside of performing, Mr. Lucarelli is involved with several professional organizations including, founder and president of Oboe International, presenter of the

New York International Competition for Solo Oboe Players, member of the National

Academy of Recording Artists, founder of the Lucarelli Oboe Master Class at Music

Mountain and the South Shore Conservatory. He is the founder of the Lucarelli Winds

Workshop at Music Mountain, and former chair of the woodwind and brass department at the Hartt School of Music. He is on the board of directors for Music Mountain

Concerts, consultant for the National Endowment of the Arts; and the National

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Foundation for Advancement in the Arts. He also served on several academic committees at the University of Hartford.

Mr. Lucarelli has been the recipient of many professional honors and grant awards including, a Recording Grant from the National Endowment of the Arts, a Solo

Recitalists Fellowship Grant from the National Endowment of the Arts, a Consortium

Commissioning Grant from the National Endowment of the Arts, a Commission Grant from the New York State Council of the Arts and the first woodwind instrumentalist to receive the Martha Baird Rockefeller Music Fund Grant.

Mr. Lucarelli has published many performance editions for the International

Music Publishing Company. He has authored reviews for the American Record Guide and has been featured in articles in the Journal of the International Double Reed Society and The Instrumentalist. His recordings and performances have been extensively reviewed in The New York Times, American Record Guide, The Double Reed, and

Gramophone Magazine.

NEED FOR THE STUDY

While writing a research paper on twentieth century oboe concertos, including the John Corigliano concerto, I was unable to find substantial documentation on the life and career of oboist Humbert Lucarelli. After studying with him at the Hartt School of

Music and learning about some of his career, I realized that little has been published

4 about his accomplishments. As an influential twentieth century performer he is responsible for recording, commissioning, and premiering important works in the oboe repertoire and has been a great mentor to hundreds of young musicians. The lack of biographical information and the career path he chose deserves close examination. This is the primary motivation behind the writing of this document.

There are a few sources that have small amounts of information on his background as performer but almost nothing exists on his early life and the circumstances that led to his solo career. Lucarelli is among a handful of oboists to be named in the New Groves Dictionary of Music and Musicians. He will undoubtedly be considered a historical figure in the future. Very little has been written about the circumstances surrounding the oboe concerto composed for Mr. Lucarelli by John

Corigliano. There are discrepancies between his premiere recording and the G.

Schirmer publication.

As a solo recording artist, Mr. Lucarelli has recorded hundreds of tracks and has merged classical and pop genres. This was designed by the artist to attract new audience members and increase the popularity of the instrument. As a result, a discography of his solo and chamber works were compiled to accompany this document.

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PURPOSE OF DOCUMENT

The purpose of this document is to provide biographical information on Mr.

Lucarelli’s career and how it developed into something different from the orchestral career for which he trained. Bypassing offers from the Baltimore Symphony, Houston

Symphony, and the Indianapolis Symphony, Mr. Lucarelli forged a career as the first leading solo oboe artist in America. Further, this document will give insight into his pedagogical practices and provide detailed discrepancies and historical background of the Concerto for Oboe composed for him by John Corigliano.

This document also contains a listing of Lucarelli’s recorded works, published performance editions, selected newspaper articles and reviews, journal publications, and transcripts to provide a thorough documentation of his career.

REVIEW OF LITERATURE

The sources that have been published on or about various aspects of Humbert

Lucarelli’s career include reviews, interviews and newspaper articles concerning public

6 performances. Limited biographical information is available through dictionaries, journals, and web sites.

The New Groves Dictionary of Music and Musicians (Page, J. et al) entry under

Oboe identifies Mr. Lucarelli as one of America’s premier oboists. The Oboe, (2004) by

Geoffrey Burgess and Bruce Haynes, lists small fragments of Lucarelli’s discography and minimal statements about Lucarelli’s career. There are two significant newspaper articles featuring biographical information on his life. The Chicago Tribune published the article: “Oboist’s Solo Flights Successful” by Mary Campbell. The New York Times published a biographical article entitled, “A Master of the Oboe in Recital at ‘Y’” by

Raymond Ericson. There are countless articles and advertisements in newspapers that contain historical information which illustrate the timeline of Lucarelli’s career. There are several reviews from The New York Times concerning numerous recitals at Carnegie

Hall and Lincoln Center that portray Mr. Lucarelli through the eyes of critics. Magazine and journal reviews in Gramophone Magazine, the American Record Guide, and The

Double Reed provide valuable feedback on his solo recordings. Another source includes

“No Easy Answers,” from The Instrumentalist, which gives first-hand accounts of

Lucarelli’s pedagogical practices and a few details about his career.

The G. Schirmer edition of the Concerto for Oboe by John Corigliano contains a preface with background information on the five movements. There is also information concerning the movements of the work displayed on John Corigliano’s web site. Mr.

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Lucarelli’s personal oboe manuscript illustrates differing notations from the G. Schirmer edition.

Performance biographies can be found on the websites of schools at which he is employed. After careful research, no substantial published writings concerning Mr.

Lucarelli’s versatile career, have been found. Much of the document is based on my research findings and interviews that I have conducted with Mr. Lucarelli. This document also examines Mr. Lucarelli’s manuscript oboe part which provides insight into his premiere recording of the oboe concerto composed by John Corigliano.

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DEFINITION OF TERMS AND ABBREVIATIONS

Buzz Note- A type of multiphonic played with a “buzz-like” quality

Double Trill- A trill performed by alternating between different fingerings of the same pitch and another tone

GS- Refers to the G. Schirmer edition of the Concerto for Oboe by John Corigliano mm.- Abbreviation for measure

MS- Refers to the Manuscript Score for the Concerto for Oboe by John Corigliano

Multiphonic- Performing more than one note at the same time on a monophonic instrument

OM – Refers to the Oboe Manuscript of the Concerto for Oboe by John Corigliano

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LIMITATIONS OF THE STUDY SECTION

This document is limited to experiences that are of extreme importance in Mr.

Lucarelli’s career. It is limited to his experiences as a performing musician and educator. The discography of his works is strictly limited to commercial recordings, solo and chamber music works and excludes all large ensemble recordings.

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Chapter 2

Biography

Childhood and Early Career

Umberto Giovanni (Humbert John) Lucarelli was born in Chicago, Illinois, on July

20, 1936. He was the son of Humbert Rocco Lucarelli and Antoinette Leto. His father emigrated from Sora, Italy and was a skilled cabinet maker. After retiring from carpentry, the senior Lucarelli became an amateur artist painter and harpsichord builder. Humbert’s mother was the daughter of Sicilian parents and worked as a seamstress. They had two children, Humbert and Virginia. As a young boy, Humbert expressed an entrepreneurial mind-set. At the age of nine, Humbert and his cousin created an international philatelic company. They advertised in magazines and sold stamps internationally. They were so successful they turned a profit in their first year

(H. Lucarelli, personal communication, November 13, 2010). Lucarelli explained, “It was very early on in my DNA that I think that way” (H. Lucarelli, personal communication,

November 13, 2010). This entrepreneurial spirit would play an important role throughout Lucarelli’s life and would significantly impact his success as a musician.

As a youngster, Humbert was a very gifted baseball pitcher. In 1949, his father was contacted by a scout from the Chicago White Sox who offered Humbert a chance to

11 go to the White Sox training camp for inner-city youth. The scout told Senior Lucarelli that he had promise. Unfortunately, within weeks of this good fortune, Humbert was seriously injured in an automobile accident. While helping push a stalled-out car in the street, he was crushed by an oncoming car and pinned between the two. This accident rendered him unable to walk for a year and a half. Lucarelli underwent an exhausting surgery to reconstruct his legs (H. Lucarelli, personal communication, July 10, 2010).

While recovering from his injuries, Humbert’s father suggested, “Since you won’t have your pitching for a while, and you should have something to make you feel special, why don’t you do something in music your freshman year?” (Lucarelli, 1988, p.13). He suggested that his son learn his favorite instrument, the oboe. “What’s an oboe?” young Lucarelli responded. “That’s for you to find out” (Lucarelli, 13 Instrumentalist).

Intrigued by his father’s suggestion, Lucarelli decided to inquire.

During his first day at Austin High School, he asked to see an oboe. The very first note he played he remembers sounding “attractive” (H. Lucarelli, personal communication, July 10, 2010). From the beginning, Lucarelli recognized that music was his true gift. Lucarelli stated, “The minute I picked up the instrument, I knew what I wanted to do” (Campbell, 1986, p. 8). He was then known as the kid with the sound. It was at Austin High School that he would have the opportunity to study with Robert

Mayer, the famed English hornist of the Chicago Symphony. These lessons were arranged by his high school music teacher, Louis Blaha:

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I went to a high school that had a band director that was one of those magical people, that was able to out of spit and bubble gum and Scotch-tape put together a great band program. He was able to talk Chicago Symphony players to come and teach for free. There are some inspired people in this world. His name was Louis Blaha (H. Lucarelli, personal communication, November 15, 2010).

Lucarelli’s musical gifts were apparent from his earliest days in school. “When the teacher of the music program became too ill to conduct I was invited to conduct the orchestra in its last concert of the school year” (Lucarelli, H., personal communication,

July 10, 2010). During his teenage years Lucarelli showed intense musical talent. “I was a big shot in high school. I conducted the orchestra and played principal oboe all the way through high school” (H. Lucarelli, personal communication, November 15, 2010).

Lucarelli’s talent also earned him a spot in the Illinois All-State High School Orchestra. In his junior year of high school, Lucarelli’s family moved to the far west side of Chicago.

This meant a new high school and a long four-hour commute to take oboe lessons with

Robert Mayer. Robert Mayer “was one of those players that inspired a lot of young players” (H. Lucarelli, personal communication, November 15, 2010). Through his lessons with Mayer and his friendship with fellow high school student Dick Cantor, (who later became the second oboist of the Chicago Symphony), Lucarelli had formed a very strong foundation for oboe playing. Marcel Tabuteau, Dick Cantor’s teacher at Curtis, was a highly influential oboe teacher and performer. When Cantor returned from his studies at the Curtis Institute on breaks, he would share what he had learned with

Lucarelli (H. Lucarelli, personal communication July, 2010).

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After graduating from high school, Lucarelli attended the University of Illinois to study music. Lucarelli did not adapt well to student life in the university. In the summer, following a difficult freshman experience, he ushered for a concert of the

Berlin Philharmonic in Chicago. Following the concert, Lucarelli felt that he needed to have a lesson with the principal oboist of the orchestra. He found out in which hotel the orchestra was housed and called to arrange a lesson with the principal oboist. After a successful lesson at the hotel, he was given the opportunity to attend the Hochschule für Musik in Berlin to study oboe (H. Lucarelli, personal communication July, 2010).

With this amazing news Lucarelli decided that he would not return to the University of

Illinois for his sophomore year.

That same summer, Lucarelli was having difficulty making reeds. A friend suggested seeking out Ray Still, the newly appointed associate-principal oboist of the

Chicago Symphony, who was known to make wonderful reeds. After ushering a concert of the Chicago Symphony that summer, Lucarelli approached associate-principal oboist

Ray Still for reed lessons, to which Still’s reply was, “I teach the oboe, not reed making”

(H. Lucarelli, personal communication July, 2010). After an apology of sorts, Humbert began oboe lessons with Mr. Still. This encounter with legendary oboist Ray Still would keep him from pursuing an education at the Hochschule. Instead, he enrolled at the

Chicago Musical College of Roosevelt University to study with Ray Still. Mr. Still taught

Lucarelli the importance of commitment to the art and craft of oboe playing (H.

Lucarelli, personal communication, March 15, 2011). While studying at Roosevelt

University, Lucarelli was a recipient of the Oliver Ditson Scholarship. 14

At the age of nineteen Lucarelli began playing with the Chicago Lyric Opera.

Originally, he was hired to play third oboe for the 1956 production of La faniculla des

West conducted by Dimitri Mirtopoulos (Retrieved from: http://www.lyricopera.org/ about/cast-1956season.aspx). Over the next two seasons, Lucarelli played both the

English horn and second oboe positions. In 1959, while performing as the second oboist during a rehearsal of Cosi Fan Tutte, conductor Josef Krips reprimanded the principal oboist for poor playing in the Overture. Krips told the contractor of the orchestra that whenever he is there to conduct he wanted Lucarelli to play first. This led to Lucarelli becoming the principal oboist of the Chicago Lyric Opera (H. Lucarelli, personal communication, March 15, 2011). Lucarelli recalled his opera experience:

Tullio Serafin…He was great, incredible. I was 19 and he told me to sing when I played and it wasn’t hard because the opera was Otello with Tebaldi, Del Monaco and Gobbi. I also remember that fantastic Tristan with Artur Rodizinski…and after her big aria in Cosi Fan Tutte, Elisabeth Schwarzkopf gave me a solo bow (Jacobson, 1971, p.30).

During his last semester at Roosevelt University, Lucarelli began substituting with the Chicago Symphony. He was acting as assistant-principal oboist for the orchestra for two summers at a music festival in Ravinia. Shortly after graduation, Lucarelli began playing principal oboe with several other professional ensembles. “I was doing the

Chicago Lyric Opera, Florida Symphony, and Grant Park all at the same time. I had a full orchestra season” (H. Lucarelli, personal communication, November 15, 2010). The schedules of the groups allowed Lucarelli to play in all three simultaneously for nearly four years. In 1959, Lucarelli recalls earning a substantial living. “So I was making in

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1959…I was earning over fifty thousand dollars a year!” (H. Lucarelli, personal communication, November 15, 2010). This income included payment from freelance work, record dates, lessons and jingles primarily in Chicago.

After performing this rigorous schedule for four years, Lucarelli stated, “I couldn’t stand it anymore…I had to get out” (H. Lucarelli, personal communication,

November 15, 2010). Lucarelli decided to move to New York to perform and study with

Robert Bloom. In his mind, Chicago was not going to get any better. Ray Still had only just arrived and would hold the principal chair for a long period of time.

During this indecisive time, Lucarelli was offered jobs with some prominent orchestras in the United States. Lucarelli said, (I) “Turned down offers from symphonies in Indianapolis and Baltimore and in 1962 moved to New York for further study”

(Campbell, 1986, p.8.) After signing a contract with the Florida Symphony, the position of principal oboe of the Indianapolis Symphony was offered to Lucarelli. “I went to the

Florida Symphony to see if they would let me out of my contract so I could take the

Indianapolis job and they said no. They wouldn’t let me go” (H. Lucarelli, personal communication, November 15, 2010). Lucarelli, conscientious of professional integrity, honored his commitment in Florida.

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Illustration 1: (Lucarelli on right with Florida Symphony. Van Cliburn at the piano, 1960)

In 1961, while continuing to play in the Florida Symphony, Lucarelli moved to

New York during the off season and struggled to make a living. “My first year in New

York I earned three hundred dollars. I went from fifty thousand to three hundred dollars in one year” (H. Lucarelli, personal communication, November 15, 2010). In fact, it was so difficult that Lucarelli lived on Kraft-Macaroni-and–Cheese! Work was slow at first, but Lucarelli managed to get some performance opportunities playing second oboe to renowned oboist Leonard Arner in various “pick-up” groups (H. Lucarelli, personal communication, November 15, 2010). Shortly after moving to New York, he began his studies with the Dean of American oboists, Robert Bloom. He studied with

Bloom for six years.

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In fact I still remember my first lesson with him. I told him, ‘I know I’m a good oboe player. But what I need to know is can I become really special like you’... He charged me ten dollars for my first lesson. After that he didn’t take any money from me for lessons. That was my answer if I could be special. I thought he wouldn’t bother with me if I wasn’t going to be special. So for six years he didn’t take any money from me (H. Lucarelli, personal communication, November 15, 2010).

After a few years of struggling in New York, Lucarelli made his New York solo debut in a recital at Carnegie Hall. With his entrepreneurial mind-set, he invited many important music contractors and personnel managers from New York City to attend.

The recital was successful, but was received with a mixed review by The New York Times critic Howard Klein.

Bert Lucarelli, an oboist with expertise playing in symphony orchestras, made his New York debut last night at Carnegie Recital Hall in a program of uncommon interest. Three solo works were played: Telemann’s Sonata in A minor, Hindemith’s Sonata for Oboe and Piano and Britten’s Six Metamorphoses after Ovid for Oboe solo. Mozart’s Quartet for Oboe and Strings and Vaughan Williams’ Ten Blake Songs for Soprano, Tenor, and Oboe completed the list. The adroit programming was a help, for while Mr. Lucarelli was a solid musician and technician, he was too self-effacing a performer to sustain interest for long. The oboist’s tone was strong and well formed with enough vibrato for minimal warmth and his dynamic control was careful. But good orchestral players don’t always make the best recitalists, and this seemed to be the case here (Klein, 1964).

Instead of becoming demoralized and defeated, Lucarelli used the review of his

New York debut and learned from it. He realized that he was too absorbed in the craft of playing and needed to say something with his music (Ericson, 1979). Over the next three years he would study other art forms in order to enhance communication with his audience. He studied famous recitalists Arthur Rubenstein, Jascha Heifetz, Dietrich

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Fisher-Diskau and his favorite, Elisabeth Schwarzkopf who really knew the art of the recital. He studied acting with Richard Jones, and he learned, “not only how to project in a large space, but how not to distract an audience from the music with contrivance”

(Lucarelli, 1988, p.13). Jones also taught him “the difference between real art and artifact” (Lucarelli, 1988, p.13). This enabled Lucarelli to transform his solo playing into an artistic experience.

He studied sculpting with Peter Nicholson and learned “how to pull ideas and feelings from within” (Lucarelli, 1988, p.13). He studied painting with Lucia Tallarico who had been a student of Hans Hoffman’s School of Abstract Expressionism. This taught him how to have “courage, patience, and trust as well as to let ideas emerge from within” (Lucarelli, 1988, p.13). In order to better his stamina and concentration, he studied yoga. Yoga and Alexander Technique helped Lucarelli use his body efficiently, while playing through long exhausting recitals.

Lucarelli used these experiences to prepare him for his next recital at Carnegie

Hall. This time, critic Howard Klein praised Lucarelli’s performance. Klein would complain only that the recital was too short.

Humbert Lucarelli’s concert at Carnegie Recital Hall last night was full of music but it seemed too short. The oboist made his debut here in 1964, and has appeared in various local ensembles since then. He put together an ideal kind of program, and it was a distinct pleasure to have been there… Mr. Lucarelli’s sweet tone, keen rhythm and sensitive phrasing were most effective here (Klein, 1967).

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All of his hard work and training in the various art forms paid off. Lucarelli gave a highly successful recital as a solo artist. He was able to shake off the label of being an orchestral musician and learned how to play as a solo recitalist.

As a result of his success, Lucarelli broke into the freelance chamber music scene. He began performing in the Lark Woodwind Quintet, and made his first solo recording. The recording was the complete works for winds by Carl Nielsen. Lucarelli recorded the Wind Quintet, and the Two Fantasias for oboe and piano. He continued to record on record dates, jingles, and with orchestras and various chamber groups.

Lucarelli had the opportunity to perform with some prestigious New York groups, including the New York Baroque Ensemble and the New York Bach Soloists. He went on tour with Igor Stravinsky near the end of the composer’s life. He also became the solo

English hornist of the American Symphony Orchestra under the direction of Leopold

Stokowski. After three seasons in the orchestra, Lucarelli began to be disenchanted with the demands of its conductor. Lucarelli recalls, “he wanted me to play really loud all the time. And I couldn’t stand it” (H. Lucarelli, personal communication, November

13, 2010). After a concert, Lucarelli asked to resign from the orchestra.

So I still remember it. It was a concert on a Sunday afternoon and Stoki had me honking away on a solo and I decided … I’m just going to play really pretty. I’m going to do what I want. So I played really beautifully and he’s going (play louder) with his hands. After the concert I felt guilty and I decided this is really ridiculous. It’s his orchestra and he’s a very important conductor. I thought I don’t have a right to do this. So I knocked on his dressing room door and I said, ‘Maestro I need to speak with you. I feel really bad. I did something very bad. You wanted something and I didn’t give it. I feel really bad. I think I should resign from the orchestra and you should get what you want. You should get a player who will do what you want.’ And he said, ‘Oh no, no, no, I can teach you what I want you to do.’ And I said, ‘Maestro I don’t think you quite understand what I am 20

saying because I know what you want and I know how to do it. But I don’t enjoy doing that. I don’t want to play that way. I figure frankly if the composer wants what you are asking for he would have scored it for trombone.’ So he said, ‘Young man I think we should part ways’ (H. Lucarelli, personal communication, November 13, 2010).

This encounter with Stokowski was not his last; as they would meet again.

Several years later Lucarelli was hired to do a recording session with Stokowski. During the session “he kept complimenting me on how well I was playing and he put my name on the album” (H. Lucarelli, personal communication, November 13, 2010). After this recording session, Stokowski would offer Lucarelli a chance to move to Houston to play principal oboe with the Houston Symphony; however, knowing that it wouldn’t work out, Lucarelli declined.

During this period, Lucarelli was still actively engaged with Robert Bloom as a student and colleague. Lucarelli performed as the second oboist of the Bach Aria Group, with his teacher Robert Bloom, for ten years. When Mr. Bloom had fallen ill with a heart attack he asked Lucarelli to go on a national tour as the solo oboist of the Bach Aria

Group. Mr. Lucarelli recollects on the time:

Yes, and that’s when Bloom had his heart attack. He called me and I went on tour for him. He called. It was very dramatic. He said, ‘I have to go on tour with the Bach Aria group can you do it for me.’ And I said ‘yes.’ I canceled everything and I went on tour. It was a one month tour, fourteen concerts or something. We started in Toronto and Oscar Shumsky was the violinist and he was good friends with Glenn Gould. Glenn Gould came to the concert and I still remember… I played the opening aria, the first piece on the program with Maureen Forrester. And after the concert Gould came back stage and introduced himself to me and he said to me, ‘I got to tell you if I played oboe I would want to play the way you play.’ And I said ‘that’s probably because when I was in high school I bought your record of the Goldberg Variations and I listened to it every day for four years. I am playing like you. That’s all I’m doing. I’m just copying you’ (H. Lucarelli, personal communication, November 15, 2010). 21

Robert Bloom had many students, and when asked why he invited Lucarelli to play in his stead, he responded, “He knows how to play standing up” (H. Lucarelli, personal communication, November 15, 2010). This experience with the Bach Aria

Group would land subsequent recording opportunities including a recording with Mr.

Bloom. Lucarelli’s performances with the Bach Aria Group were well reviewed in The

New York Times, especially one performance with Maureen Forrester:

The Bach Aria Group always sees to it that the performing duties are evenly distributed. At Wednesday night’s concert in Alice Tully Hall, the total of seven arias and two complete cantatas added up to three arias apiece for the four vocalists and two obbligato assignments for each of the four solo instrumentalists… Maureen Forrester’s luscious, evenly focused contralto and Seth McCoy tenor, and Norman Farrow, bass,… sang with much sensitivity. Among the instrumentalists Samuel Baron, flutist, and Bert Lucarelli, oboist, were outstanding (Davis, 1974).

During the late 1960’s, Lucarelli’s feelings about symphonic performance and freelance work began to change. “When I arrived in New York in 1961 I was twenty-six or something and I did that for about ten years. I was in my mid-thirties and that’s when I started feeling like I wanted to do something else” (H. Lucarelli, personal communication, November 15, 2010). At this time, Lucarelli decided to exclusively embark on a solo career.

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Chapter 3

Solo Career

At first, the idea of a solo career was a big struggle for Lucarelli. “When I first started doing solo work it was a real problem for me. I felt like I had left the family. I left the orchestra. It was my family. I had to deal with that” (H. Lucarelli, personal communication, November 15, 2010). After taking the risk of leaving the orchestral scene, Lucarelli now had to prove that he could excel as a soloist. His first solo concerto engagement was a performance of the Oboe Concerto by Bohuslav Martinů with the

North Eastern Pennsylvania Philharmonic under the direction of Beatrice Brown.

Following this successful performance, Lucarelli gave the very first solo recital at Lincoln

Center’s Alice Tully Hall. “There was a period when I was going to make a statement about myself…that I was going to be pursuing a solo career” (H. Lucarelli, personal communication, November 14, 2010). Lucarelli’s unique opportunity to perform happened all by chance.

I was playing with the Royal Ballet. I was walking down the street with this friend of mine who was the concert master of the Royal Ballet. Guy Lumia. He had just signed a contract with Saul Hurok. Saul Hurok was the most important Impresario in the United States music business. He created careers... hands down. So he had just signed with Hurok. We were just walking out of rehearsal and he says to me, ‘I really screwed up. I booked the hall and got the right to do the first recital in the hall before Lincoln Center’s opening. I can’t do it, because I just signed a contract with Saul Hurok the most important Impresario in the United States and he does not want me to play a New York 23

recital until I have gone on the road and gotten reviews. Then when I get back he will present me with all of these reviews and no one will be able to say I am nobody.’ Hurok was that kind of manipulator. ‘I am going to lose the money that I paid for the hall.’ So I said to Guy, ‘I will do it. I will take the hall.’ It was a very naïve… very stupid thing to say. I took it and played a recital in the hall and it got a wonderful review. So I got to thinking, maybe I should do more of this (H. Lucarelli, personal communication, November 14, 2010).

This opportunity proved to be a career booster for Lucarelli. He began to think about different aspects of becoming a musical personality. On October 17, 1969,

Lucarelli gave the first solo recital at Alice Tully Hall. Critic Theodore Strongin who attended the concert wrote:

The oboe is not an instrument usually found frequenting the recital stage all by itself, or for that matter, even with just harpsichord or piano. In the right hands though, the oboe can hold its own as a solo recital instrument. That fact was again demonstrated by Humbert Lucarelli last night at Alice Tully Hall. Mr. Lucarelli has technique to spare, plenty of performing style and an extrovert kind of assurance that keeps him projecting directly to the audience (Strongin, 1969).

The recital was so successful that Lucarelli scheduled three more recitals at Alice

Tully Hall. Each recital had a specific theme. The first recital was called the Romantic

Oboe and Lucarelli received another fantastic review by Allen Hughes:

Bert Lucarelli is a first-rate oboist, and his enthusiasm for the instrument and its solo literature has led him to schedule three appearances at Tully Hall this season…the first event, given Saturday night, was a delight from beginning to end…It was a program in which lyricism predominated, and Mr. Lucarelli’s playing had the smoothness and songfulness of a beautiful voice perfectly produced (Hughes, 1970).

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The following two recitals were entitled American Premieres of Contemporary

Music, and the Baroque Oboe. It was on the American Premieres recital that Lucarelli played the New York premiere of Berio’s Sequenza VII. It was a work that Lucarelli and

Berio fought over. The composer wanted the work to be played by memory and

Lucarelli did not want to memorize the work (H. Lucarelli, personal communication,

November 15, 2010). Interestingly enough, Lucarelli would have the audience hum the b-natural drone during this performance of the work (Jacobson, 1982, p.32). The third recital featured Lucarelli performing five Baroque concertos of differing styles. Lucarelli reminisces about the Baroque concert:

I did five concertos in one evening with a string orchestra… What made it interesting, why critics came, was I didn’t do just five concertos. I did five concertos from five different styles of baroque music. I did Italian, English, German, French, and 20th century baroque. The 20th century baroque was a Cimarosa. And then I did a Handel concerto that was ornamented in English style. I studied with somebody who knew English ornamentation. I did a Vivaldi Concerto and I did a Telemann. I did something interesting it wasn’t just five concertos. Each one was ornamented in a different way (H. Lucarelli, personal communication, November 15, 2010).

All three recitals at Alice Tully Hall were sold out. “He amazed skeptics by drawing full houses to all three Alice Tully Hall concerts devoted to oboe music”(Jacobson, 1982, p.30). After successful recitals and a solidified presence in the freelance scene, Lucarelli was well on his way to a flourishing solo career.

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Illustration: 2 (Humbert Lucarelli’s Alice Tully Hall Advertisement for a Three Concert Series 1970-1971)

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Lucarelli performed many solo recitals at Tully Hall throughout the 1970’s. This decade was filled with musical activity. Lucarelli performed concertos with the renowned group I Solisti Veneti in Italy and at New York’s Lincoln Center. He started performing recitals and concertos throughout the United States and abroad. His travels took him to the island of Corfu for the Corfu Music Festival. He toured throughout

Australia, performing a multi-concert tour of the Strauss and Mozart oboe concertos.

He went on a nationwide tour as solo oboist with the Bach Aria Group and with the

Orchestra of St. John’s, Smith Square. He performed oboe concertos in Lincoln Center’s

Avery Fischer Hall with the famous Orpheus Chamber Orchestra. During this decade,

Lucarelli also recorded eight albums and began experimenting with other genres and ensembles.

Lucarelli endeavored to bridge the gap between classical and popular music. He recorded with popular artists such as Joan Baez, Richie Havens, and Ornette Coleman.

His biggest experiment was a heavy metal crossover band named Musemorphoses. The group blended classical music and rock genres. The band was made up of seven talented musicians from New York; most with degrees from Juilliard. The band featured Lucarelli on oboe, percussionist Gordon Gottlieb, guitarist Scott Kuney, pianist and vocals Eddie Rabin, percussionist Roy Pennington, bass guitarist Harvie Swartz, and lighting specialist John Dodd. The group was designed to perform 200 years of western music.

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The group cast Lucarelli as a rock star. Journalist Caryl Wald stated, “Bert

Lucarelli, remember the name, because this year you’ll be hearing it on most campuses throughout the United States and Canada” (Wald, 1973). The group performed a successful Carnegie Hall recital and played music ranging from Judy Collins to Luciano

Berio.

For the last few years, Bert Lucarelli has been searching for ways to expand the potentials of both his instrument, the oboe, and the whole concert experience…Monday night at Carnegie Hall Mr. Lucarelli took another tack by mixing pop and classical idioms in varying proportions. Assisted by a five-man rock group, the Musemorphoses, Mr. Lucarelli performed more or less straight versions of sonatas by Telemann, and Poulenc and Berio’s Sequenza VII, pop tinged arrangements of Villa Lobos, Tchaikovsky and Bach, and a number of pure pop-rock pieces (Davis, 1973)

Illustration 3: (Lucarelli on right practicing with Musemorphoses. Early 1970’s)

Illustration 4: (Lucarelli performing with Musemorphoses in 1972 Glue Concert)

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Illustration 5: (Program of Lucarelli and Musemorphoses at Carnegie Hall, May 7, 1973) 29

Bert Lucarelli and The Musemorphoses were planning to perform at campuses across the United States and were in the process of working on a record deal. This type of music was original and had the potential to create a new wave of popular music. The group was successful but eventually broke up after a lucrative record contract collapsed.

Lucarelli recalls the strange circumstances behind the ordeal:

We came within a hairsbreadth of getting a major recording contract. It’s a weird story. A big record company called us and wanted to meet with us. It was like a big board meeting. Twenty people sitting around a table like something out of a B movie. So they wanted us to play some tapes of our stuff and it was going really well. Then we played one cut. The group played all kinds of music from Heavy Metal to Renaissance, Jazz, Rock and Roll, and Classical. We even did the Poulenc Sonata. We got to the Jazz portion, and it was a piece by a very well known Jazz bass player. The piece was called Sarabande… and we put that on the machine… and one guy stood up, the vice president of marketing, and he said, ‘Are you guys coming on to me! ...I don’t need any part of this. I’m leaving.’ We lost the contract. Isn’t that wild? Getting ready to sign a million dollar contract and I don’t know what happened. Was it a set up? I don’t know. So the group died (H. Lucarelli, personal communication, November 14, 2010).

Lucarelli was still eager to bring a bigger audience to the oboe. He would have many chances to popularize the instrument. For Lucarelli, the 1970’s were a time of musical experimentation. He had numerous Lincoln Center and Carnegie Hall recitals with unique programs. This included theater events at Alice Tully Hall. One event had over a hundred actors on stage while Lucarelli descended from the ceiling in a basket while performing Benjamin Britten’s Six Metamorphoses after Ovid. He continued to freelance, added tours around the world, and increased his recording experience. In

1975, Lucarelli’s career was given a boost with a young, virtually unknown composer’s concerto.

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CHAPTER 4

Corigliano Oboe Concerto

History and Background

In 1974, Humbert Lucarelli was awarded a commissioning grant from the New

York State Council of the Arts. The grant was awarded to have a work composed for solo oboe. Mr. Lucarelli approached a young up-and-coming composer by the name of

John Corigliano to write a work for oboe. Corigliano began taking oboe lessons with

Lucarelli after agreeing to the project. “When he started working on the concerto I actually got him an oboe and he started taking oboe lessons with me” (H. Lucarelli, personal communication, November 14, 2010). The friendship between composer and performer helped create a fresh and modern work with contemporary technique that was made accessible to many professional oboists.

Corigliano abandoned the traditional three movement form of the concerto.

Instead, he composed five movements that focused on the unique playing characteristics of the oboe. The first movement entitled “Tuning Game,” begins with the oboe tuning the orchestra in sections. Once the orchestra is tuned the oboe begins to play around with the tuning note A. The oboist is instructed to play quarter tone improvisations on the pitch A (Corigliano, 1975). Throughout the movement, the

31 composer utilizes many contemporary techniques such as multiphonics, buzz notes, harmonics, and glissandi, in addition to the full range of the oboe from low b-flat to a3.

Many of these techniques are a direct result of collaboration with Lucarelli, including the use of multiphonics. At the time of the composition, multiphonics were becoming fashionable (H. Lucarelli, personal communication, November 15, 2010). The work utilizes three types of multiphonics exploring effect and range. Other composer’s notate their multiphonics with exact pitches and chords, which is extremely difficult to reproduce on the oboe. This technique is not universal to all oboists. The individual oboe, reed, and performer may not always be able to accurately achieve exact multiphonics. “I told John look, this I know you can get from every oboe player: a high, a medium and a low” (H. Lucarelli, personal communication, November 14, 2010).

Therefore, many players find it possible to utilize.

The first movement has short passages in which Lucarelli was given artistic license by the composer to alter, making these sections more accessible to oboists.

He wrote something in the oboe part that was so unnecessarily awkward, that it wasn’t reasonable. So I called him and I said, ‘John this measure is so bizarre, do you need to have those notes in that sequence?’ He said, ‘No, not really.’ So I said, ‘What’s important in that measure? What notes do you want? And can I re-sequence the whole thing?’ And he said, ‘Yeah, go ahead.’ So I rewrote that little measure to make it playable for an oboe player. And that’s the kind of interchange between the composer and performer that I think is really very important (H. Lucarelli, personal communication, November 14, 2010).

This working relationship continued well into the recording sessions.

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The second movement entitled “Song,” is a test of the oboist’s endurance as long simple sounding lines highlight the lyrical quality of the oboe. This movement utilizes much of the high register of the oboe and demands endurance from the performer. The second movement is attacca into the third movement.

The third movement, called Scherzo, is a brisk 208 beats to the quarter note.

The meter bounces back and forth between mixed meters and compound duple and triple meters. This movement is extremely complicated for the entire ensemble. Based on the early manuscript of the oboe part, sections were removed because the movement was too long (H. Lucarelli, personal communication, March 15, 2011). The performer must play multiphonics, buzz notes, double trills, and repetitions of repeated patterns to be played as fast as possible. The oboist is also directed to play passages out of tempo with the orchestral accompaniment and to improvise on figures previously performed. Other portions of the movement are to be timed in seconds rather than traditional beats. The movement highlights the very percussive nature of the low register of the oboe as it calls on the oboist to play loud staccato low b-flats.

The fourth movement, entitled Aria, explores the dramatic and coloratura qualities of the oboe. In the preface of the published work the composer describes the fourth movement as, “An arch form that leads to a forceful cadenza. Since the oboe builds to its richest and strongest sound as it descends in range, the climax of the arch is in its lowest register” (Corigliano, 1975). After a long cadenza, the oboe finishes the movement on a high c3 that lasts nine measures at 48 beats to the half note. Following

33 the cadenza the oboe is accompanied solely by a string quartet. This movement was later arranged by the composer for Mr. Lucarelli in 1975 for oboe and string ensemble and for oboe and string quintet. This arrangement was dedicated to Mark Malkovich, the well-known music director of the Newport Music Festival.

In the preface of the work, Corigliano (1975) explains that the final movement entitled “Rheita Dance” is composed so that the oboe imitates the sound of an Arabic oboe called the Rheita. This sound is achieved by placing the embouchure on the strings of the reed located below the cane. The composer first heard the Rheita in Marrakech in 1966 while watching a snake charmer. The Rheita is a wooden instrument with a coin shaped disc (pirouette) which houses the reed. The lips are placed against the pirouette allowing the reed to vibrate freely when air passes through it. The performance instructions include wailing, Rheita sound, ordinary oboe sound, or playing a rough line.

The movement sounds very exotic and ends with a quick vivace section. In the middle of the movement Lucarelli had asked Corigliano to write a solo for the principal oboist in the orchestral accompaniment. There is a duet between the raucous Rheita sounding oboe and the smooth beautiful tone of an orchestral oboist. They pass the line back and forth until both oboists are playing in a smooth and melancholy manner. Lucarelli explains:

Right in the middle of the movement the music just stops and there is a beautiful oboe solo. I thought I’m this guy playing a concerto with the orchestra. The orchestra oboe player never really gets a chance to play and it’s not fair. So why don’t you write a beautiful oboe solo for the principal oboe player of the orchestra. And so he wrote that thing while I am playing this really raucous thing. The first oboe comes in playing this beautiful line and it’s trying to get me to play beautifully instead of raucous and then I 34

join that player. And if you listen very carefully there is an integration of the pretty playing from the orchestra with the kind of raucous playing that I am doing. And then it sort of blends into a beautiful duet and suddenly I turn it into raucous and the orchestral oboe player starts playing raucous with me (H. Lucarelli, personal communication, November 15, 2010).

Lucarelli was pleased with the collaboration on this particular movement. He was very conscientious of the principal oboist’s position in the orchestra. In one review of Lucarelli’s performance a critic wondered, “‘isn’t it strange our orchestra player’s sound so much more beautiful than Mr. Lucarelli?’ ‘He was totally missing the point of the exchange’” (H. Lucarelli, personal communication, November 14, 2010). By giving a substantial solo to the principal oboist, Lucarelli and Corigliano created a work that orchestral oboists would enjoy playing.

John Corigliano’s Concerto for Oboe and String Orchestra was premiered on

November 9th, 1975, in Carnegie Hall by Humbert Lucarelli and the American Symphony

Orchestra, under the direction of Kazuyoshi Akiyama. The performance was well received and Lucarelli was given a standing ovation. Lucarelli’s premiere performance with the American Symphony Orchestra was reviewed in The New York Times on

November 10, 1975.

The world premiere of John Corigliano’s Oboe Concerto served to remind one of the extraordinary talents of the soloist, Bert Lucarelli. But it also introduced an impressive work that the world’s better oboe players will want to add to their repertories. Mr. Corigliano, the 37 year old son of the New York Philharmonic’s late concertmaster, indulges in a small orchestral in-joke at the outset, building a movement entitled “Tuning” on the oboe’s middle A and all the open fifths, arpeggios and scalar doodling used in preconcert warm-ups. Surprisingly, however, the composer made an absorbing piece out of such banalities. Two subsequent movements, ‘Song” and “Aria” offered 35

Mr. Lucarelli chances to beguile with his pure tone and graceful way with a phrase, a ‘Scherzo” paired him in an extended duet with the percussion section and the concluding “Rheita Dance” took off on the Arabic oboe with rhythmically infectious results (Henahan, 1975).

This concerto has become a staple of the solo oboists’ repertoire. Not long after its premiere, Lucarelli recorded the work with Corigliano by his side.

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Illustration 6: (Program from the world premiere of Corigliano’s Concerto for Oboe featuring Bert Lucarelli. November 9, 1975)

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Illustration 7: (Program Notes from the world premiere of Corigliano’s concerto featuring Bert Lucarelli) 38

Lucarelli recorded the work in 1978 with the American Symphony Orchestra and conductor Kazuyoshi Akiyama. RCA’s renowned producer, Thomas Shepard, was at the helm. Lucarelli’s RCA Victor recording of the concerto with the American Symphony

Orchestra is historically unique because the composer was present during the recording and supervised the interpretation. Robert Howe’s review of the recording in the

American Record Guide exclaimed:

This disc is first on the review list simply because it contains one of the most remarkable woodwind recordings I’ve ever heard…Bert Lucarelli plays it marvelously, handling, the many difficulties with aplomb, exhibiting tremendous virtuosity and complete control of the oboe’s traditional and modern aspects…This is an outstanding recording, possibly the best ever made of contemporary oboe music (Howe, 1978).

Since the debut of this concerto Mr. Lucarelli has performed the work over fifty times (H. Lucarelli, personal communication, March 15, 2011). Lucarelli gave eighteen performances of the work with the San Francisco Ballet. He also performed the work with numerous professional and university orchestras across the globe. In 1989,

Lucarelli gave several unique performances of the work with the Martha Graham Dance

Company. The work was part of a program entitled American Document. The movement and costumes were designed by Martha Graham and world renowned dancer Mikhail Baryshnikov danced the lead role.

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Illustration 8: (Program of Lucarelli as soloist with Martha Graham Dance Co. performing Corigliano Concerto on October 3, 1989)

The concerto written and dedicated to Lucarelli propelled the careers of both artist and composer. Their collaborative relationship created one of the most well- known concertos in the oboist’s repertoire.

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CHAPTER 5

Performance Discrepancies

The Concerto for Hautboy as entitled on the manuscript, by John Corigliano, was first published with a piano reduction by G. Schirmer in 1978. The oboe part indicates that Humbert Lucarelli was the editor. After speaking with Mr. Lucarelli, I learned that there are many inconsistencies between Lucarelli’s manuscript and the published edition. In 1983, Mr. Lucarelli was contacted by G. Schirmer for a clean copy of the work. Somehow, the work was either missing or lost by the company. Mr. Lucarelli offered to provide a revised copy to the publisher to make corrections and changes to match the manuscript. Unfortunately, the company printed the same version again.

The manuscript solo oboe part, manuscript score, and the premiere recording all differ from the G. Schirmer edition.

According to Mr. Lucarelli, John Corigliano was present during the recording of the work. He was actively involved during the recording sessions and sat right next to

Lucarelli in the studio. It is probable that in the creative process of composition, changes may not always make it into the final score. In an interview with Kathy Geisler

(2009), Lucarelli stated that, “I’ve been in situations with contemporary composers when we are in a rehearsal and a composer will change something in my part, and that

41 change never gets into the score” (p. 5). Ultimately, there are discrepancies between the oboe manuscript used for the premiere recording and the G. Schirmer publication.

For the purposes of this chapter, OM will serve as the term for the solo oboe manuscript. GS, for the G. Schirmer edition and MS, for the manuscript score.

MOVEMENT I

During the introduction of the first movement, in measure ten of the OM there is no marcato marking. The GS and MS part both indicate a marcato marking. In measures 22 and 23 there is a ritard indicated in the OM and the MS that is not notated in the GS. In measure 34, the OM has the A to G# slurred on beat 2. Both the GS and

MS score do not indicate this articulation. The OM also indicates a tempo of 126 to the dotted half note, not 84 as notated in the GS. In measure 40, the GS and MS parts indicate a subito mezzo piano which is not notated in the OM.

Measure 45 poses a complex problem. Mr. Lucarelli explained that Mr.

Corigliano allowed him to rework some of the notes in this passage. In the premiere recording, Mr. Lucarelli plays what is notated in the OM. The differing pitches between the OM, MS, and GS parts require close examination. The pitches in (Figure 3) that are circled suggest that the composer considered changing those pitches to match the OM part. The OM part has a G to A natural on beat 3 of measure 45, while the GS has A to

G-natural. The following illustration shows changes that were allowed by the composer:

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45

Figure 1: (Measure 45 of OM)

45

Figure 2: (Measure 45 of GS)

45

Figure 3: (Measure 45 in MS)

In measure 54, the GS part indicates a fermata on the downbeat. This marking does not appear in the OM or the MS. Measure 64 has a rallentando in the GS part, starting on beat two. The OM has the rallentando starting on beat four of the previous measure. Measure 65 of the OM has markings of mezzo piano and dolce. These markings are not in the MS or the GS.

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In measure 88, the OM indicates slow. The MS and GS show quasi recitative with accelerando. There are crescendo decrescendo markings in the MS and GS which are not notated in the OM. Measure 90 contains tenuto markings in the GS and MS which are not in the OM. In measure 94, the OM ends with a ppp dynamic marking which is not notated in the MS and GS. In measure 95, Secco is notated in the OM and MS and is missing in the GS part.

In measure 116, the OM indicates a fermata on beat 4 which is not notated in the MS and GS. In measure 117, there are differences in the tempo. The OM notates 96 to the dotted quarter note. The GS and MS both have 92 beats to the quarter note.

In measure 151, the OM and MS dynamic marking is ff while the GS indicates fff.

The downbeat of measure 166 has a tenuto in the OM and MS that is not in the GS.

In measure 169, there are major discrepancies with pitches and articulations in the OM, GS, and MS. This phrase is a repeat of measure 45.

Figure 4: (Measure 169 of OM)

44

Figure 5: (Measure 169 of GS)

Figure 6: (Measure 169 of MS)

In measure 185, the OM and MS have a tempo of 160 to the dotted quarter note. There is no tempo marking indicated in the GS. In measure 202, the OM and MS have a marking of Free Tuning for ten seconds which is not notated in the GS. In measure 206, there is a staccato on the downbeat in the MS and GS but not in the OM.

In measure 209, there is a discrepancy in the note values and articulations. The

OM has a dotted quarter note on beat two, while the MS and GS have half notes. (See

Figure 7) This marking would allow a performer time to breathe. This is performed in the premiere recording.

Figure 7: (Measure 209 of OM) Figure 8: (Measure 209 of GS)

45

Movement II

Movement two has very few differences between the sources. In measure 11, a fermata is notated over the downbeat in both the OM and MS which is not indicated in the GS. Measure 47 into 48, has a crescendo in the OM which is not notated in the MS or GS.

Movement III

For the purposes of this section, the GS edition will be used as the reference point with page numbers, system numbers, and measure numbers within a system.

There are minimal measure numbers for this movement. At times, seconds are used instead of time signatures, making it difficult to refer to exact measure numbers.

On page 8, system two of the GS, an additional half rest is notated before the first harmonic. This is not notated in the MS or OM. On page 9, system 3, measure 3, the OM has multiphonics on the f2 line of beat one. The GS and MS are notated with regular f-naturals.

A significant discrepancy in this movement occurs on page 9, system four, measure 2, in the GS. The OM has multiphonics notated on the b1 line with C# written in pencil above it. It does not designate which octave to play. The MS and GS are the same, notating c#3 to be played. 46

Figure 9: (GS Page 9, System 4, Measure 2)

Figure 10: (OM corresponding to GS Page 9, System 4, Measure 2)

A substantial discrepancy can be found on page 14, system 3. The high c#’s notated in the GS differ from the OM and the premiere recording. The premiere recording has them played down an octave. The OM indicates notes on the b1 line, with c# written in pencil above the music. Upon closer examination, other inconsistencies can be found between Figure 11 and Figure 12.

47

Figure 11: (GS Page 14, System 3)

Figure 12: (OM corresponding to GS Page 14, System 3)

Movement IV

In measure 34, the OM and MS have a dotted half note which is notated as a half note in the GS. In measure 37, the OM has a fermata marking over the d-flat which is not indicated in the GS or MS. In measure 41 of the OM, there is a fermata over the downbeat which is not notated in the GS or MS. In the third measure of the cadenza, the MS has a half note low c which is notated as a quarter note in the OM and GS.

48

Movement V

In measure 50 of the OM, the third 16th note is notated as a d-natural. The GS and MS both have a d-flat. However, the MS does have the d-flat circled. This later appears in measure 141. This may suggest that the composer was going to change the note.

Figure 13: (Measure 50 of OM) Figure 14: (Measure 50 of GS)

At the end of measure 122, the OM and MS have a cesura marked which is not notated in the GS. In measures 177-184 there is a large section of music cut from the GS part that is notated in the MS and OM. However, the GS part is consistent with the premiere recording. This decision was likely made to the oboe part due to the orchestra playing at full volume.

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CHAPTER 6

Recording Solo Artist

Following the great success of the Corigliano concerto, Mr. Lucarelli continued performing and recording extensively as a soloist. From the 1970’s through the 2000’s,

Lucarelli recorded nearly forty albums. (See Appendix: A for full discography) At the height of his career, Lucarelli was performing sixty solo concerts a year (Campbell, 1986, p.8).

The first recording that Mr. Lucarelli made was with the Lark Quintet consisting of the wind music of Carl Nielsen. Soon after, he recorded other albums including,

Music for Oboe and Piano, Mozart’s Gran Partita, the Oboe Quintet by Robert Baksa, the Telemann Partitas, Two English Oboe Quintets by Sir Arnold Bax and Sir Arthur Bliss,

French Baroque Trio Sonatas, and the Concerto for Oboe by John Corigliano.

In the 1980’s, Mr. Lucarelli made several very successful crossover recordings.

The Sensual Sound of the Soulful Oboe may be the most sold solo oboe album in history; however, exact numbers of records sold is hard to determine. The owner of the record label has been missing from the music scene and could not be contacted. Based on his royalties, Mr. Lucarelli speculates that somewhere in between 50,000 and 100,000 copies have been sold. Initially, Mr. Lucarelli approached the recording of The Sensual

50

Sound of the Soulful Oboe as a fun project; however, as the record was going to press,

Lucarelli started to get nervous about how he would be viewed in the world of serious musicians. He decided to have his name removed from the record. Lucarelli and the producer Joseph Abend, decided to contrive a fantasy oboist to put on the record jacket:

Let’s make up a name like Antonio Antonini oboe player from Venice. We’ll make it up. So we made up this name and we made up a bio…and that was going to be the album...this fantasy oboe player. So I leave his office and I called a friend of mine who was Roger Englander. Roger was Leonard Bernstein’s television producer. He was a friend of mine. So obviously he was in the profession. He was in the business. So I told him, ‘This guy wants to do this thing called the Sensual Sound of the Soulful Oboe and they put my name on it and then I had them take it off.’ Roger said to me, ‘You’re stupid. Get your name on that album.’ So I called Joe the next day. And he says, ‘I’m glad you called. I was just about to call the printers and tell them to go to press. So we’ll change it and put your name back on it.’ So they put my name back on the album (H. Lucarelli, personal communication, November 14, 2010).

Lucarelli would have never guessed that the album would become so successful.

The success of the Sensual Sound recording led to an arranged sequel entitled More

Sensual Sounds for the Soulful Oboe. This recording would later be repackaged with The

Sensual Sound of the Soulful Oboe under a new title called The Relaxing Magic of the

Oboe.

Another successful recording was Music for Oboe and Harp, arrangements that harpist Susan Jolles and Lucarelli made together. This recording was also released under the different titles Delightful Debussy and Debussy by the Sea which sold over 25,000

51 copies. Other crossover albums would include Pop Goes the Oboe and Everybody’s

Favorite Wedding Music.

In the 1990’s, Mr. Lucarelli would settle back into serious classical recordings.

Some of these recordings were given rave reviews by some well-known personalities in the oboe profession. Sara Lambert Bloom, former professor of oboe at the University of

Cincinnati and spouse of legendary oboist Robert Bloom, wrote a review of a recording in the American Record Guide:

This CD is signature Bert Lucarelli in his prime. This is the finest performance of Lucarelli's distinguished career. His sound is warm and full, phrasing supple and expressive, technique flawless. The four works include two staples of the oboe concerto repertoire, the Strauss and the Vaughan Williams, performed beautifully by both soloist and orchestra. Wolf-Ferrari's Idillio-Concertino gives us warm, lush writing of the type that oboists were born to sing. The haunting Canzonetta was the last work Samuel Barber composed before he died a kind of final simple statement and farewell. Lucarelli gives this giant of the 20th Century a touching eulogy by this performance (Bloom, 1991).

The recording was made with the Lehigh Valley Chamber Orchestra, an orchestra that frequently accompanied Mr. Lucarelli. In fact, in 2007, the orchestra accompanied

Lucarelli for the premiere performance of an oboe concerto by Pulitzer Prize winning composer Paul Moravec.

In the 1990’s, Lucarelli initiated an oboe recording of American music. The recording featured some of Robert Bloom’s original works for oboe and works by Alec

Wilder and John Corigliano. The recording was funded by a recording recitalist grant from the National Endowment of the Arts. It was envisioned by Lucarelli as American 52 music for oboe and strings. Out of all of the pieces on the disc, it is the final piece on the album that has an interesting story. Lucarelli was nearing the completion of this recording when he realized it was less than fifty minutes in length. He searched for another work to put on the recording and found a piece by Alec Wilder entitled Piece for

Oboe and Improvisatory Percussion (H. Lucarelli, personal communication, November

13, 2010). When Lucarelli went to the recording studio to lay down the track his percussionist could not do it. The recording session was shut down. Lucarelli and the recording engineer decided to go to a local café for a cup of coffee.

So we go to this little café in Queens and on the way out of the studio this guy walks in. He’s wearing a tank top t-shirt and pony tail... So he (Mark Wood) starts talking to the engineer. This guy is a composer-percussionist who had written all the music for the Olympics. He was somebody who knew what he was doing. So I told him the whole story of what was going on and he said, ‘Oh let me do it. Let’s do it, come back into the studio.’ He took a midi keyboard and programmed it with percussion. He played it like a keyboard, the guy was brilliant. He’s composing, totally relating to what I am doing. We did one run through so he could hear what I was doing and he said, ‘Okay.’ I said, ‘what do you mean okay?’ And he said ‘Let’s do it.’ He was ready. There are people in our profession that are brilliant but you know that. What you hear on that recording was done in a single take. He was unbelievable. You can hear him composing. That was a magical experience (H. Lucarelli, personal communication, November 13, 2010).

During his active career, Lucarelli was one of the most recorded oboists in the world but not all projects made it to press. One such recording included trios for oboe,

French horn, and piano with pianist Tom Hrynkiv and hornist Philip Farkas. According to

Lucarelli, the group decided not to release the recording because the acoustics and engineering did not work out (H. Lucarelli, personal communication, March 15, 2011).

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Bach by Bert, the last solo album of Mr. Lucarelli’s career was recorded in 2004.

Lucarelli, sixty-eight years old at the time, produced a wonderful, soulful, and haunting recording. A review of the recording, published in Gramophone Magazine, compared

Lucarelli to Pablo Casals. The author of the review further stated that Lucarelli “had invested in every note a lifetime of thought and feeling to the extent that nothing is extraneous, everything is committed to making music” (Vittes, 2004, p.15). The circumstances surrounding the making of this recording are almost mystical. Each sinfonia is associated with death. The three sinfonias are interpreted in a haunting manner filled with a sense of spirituality. This may have been a result of Lucarelli having bypass surgery during the time the recording was being produced. Lucarelli set out to make this recording to preserve his ideas and interpretations on the music of Bach which is a central part of his teaching curriculum (Lucarelli, 2004).

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CHAPTER 7

Educator

Humbert Lucarelli began his tenure as Professor of Oboe at the Hartt School of

Music in West Hartford, Connecticut in 1968. During his long tenure, Mr. Lucarelli had additional teaching positions at the Aaron Copland School of Music at Queens College,

City University of New York; Purchase College, State University of New York; Brooklyn

College, City University of New York; and New York University. In 2002, Mr. Lucarelli was the first American oboist to teach at the China Central Conservatory of Music in

Beijing. In addition to teaching master classes all around the world, he performed and instructed oboe and chamber music at numerous summer festivals. He simultaneously taught at both of his oboe camps, the Lucarelli Oboe Camp at Music Mountain in

Connecticut and the South Shore Conservatory in Massachusetts. His passion as an educator continues to this day at the Hartt School of Music, Purchase College, State

University of New York; and New York University. As a professional educator and performer, Lucarelli has created a unique pedagogy and philosophy that has attracted numerous students.

Mr. Lucarelli’s teaching philosophy focuses on sound fundamentals and the unique artistic gifts of each student. “Teachers gave me the courage to believe that my

55 ability to grow and change was determined only by my capacity for imagination”

(Lucarelli, 1988, p.12). His imagination is what made his artistic expression so personal and unique. In an article he wrote for The Instrumentalist, Mr. Lucarelli explains that,

“Teaching has always struck me as a noble concept. It is fundamentally a means of passing on a tradition and is a process between two human beings that supports the possibility of moving into a more positive future” (Lucarelli, 1988, p. 12). Lucarelli has enabled his students to become independent artists and thinkers. “Teaching is pivotal to my life in music, as the phenomenon of self discovery is pivotal to any real process of teaching and learning. The most effective teachers are those who become the moderators of a dialogue, those who try never to put a student in a purely passive role”

(Lucarelli, 1988, p. 14). This philosophy requires students to become active participants in their education.

Some students are regarded by their professors as lacking in artistic and musical talent and therefore should consider other fields of study. Lucarelli believes that the potential for talent is in everyone and the teacher’s job is to understand how to help students reveal that talent (Lucarelli, 1988, p. 14). Students have a myriad of problems when studying to be musicians. One major problem is that, “a lot of them have a preconceived notion of what it means to be successful” (H. Lucarelli, personal communication, November 13, 2010). Many students equate success with winning one of the few jobs that are available in the orchestras in any given year, but Professor

Lucarelli would disagree. “If you don’t get a gig in one of the thirty or so orchestras in the United States it doesn’t mean it’s the end of your career” (H. Lucarelli, personal 56 communication, March 15, 2011). That mentality could be damaging to the student’s psyche and lead to great disappointment. Instead, they should “find their own way to make music and move lives” (H. Lucarelli, personal communication, March 15, 2011).

This is very reminiscent of Lucarelli’s career. He did not attain one of the major orchestra jobs early enough in his career which resulted in his becoming such a great entrepreneur.

When choosing students to teach Lucarelli has three criteria for working with a student, “1) Burning desire, 2) willingness to work, 3) the ability to be self-critical without defensiveness or despair” (Lucarelli, 1988, p. 14). These qualities are crucial for him as a teacher. When choosing what to teach Lucarelli’s belief is that the “highest goal of all instrumentalists is to mirror the beauty and mystery of the human voice”

(Lucarelli, 1988, p. 14). One of the most important elements to develop is “a good vocal vibrato (which) emerges from the concept of projection” (Lucarelli, 1988, p. 14). A good vibrato is only produced when the body is aligned properly and the air stream is free.

“The moment you seriously engage the sound source, namely the vocal chords or reed, with energy and tension-free vibrancy, a natural vibrato will emerge” (Lucarelli, 1988, p.

14). Lucarelli does teach vibrato with a step wise methodical approach. Once the student has mastered the concept of vibrato production, vibrato seems to happen almost naturally. Mr. Lucarelli feels that the topic of vibrato production is clouded in mystery; however, it is his “own best guess that technically it happens everywhere in the mechanism of tone production; it cannot be localized in one spot” (Lucarelli, 1988, p. 14). If it is localized in one particular area, the vibrato will not allow the musician 57 many choices of color and contrast. Vibrato should have three elements; speed, width and placement usually above the sound. Vibrato becomes problematic when there is tension and becomes localized into one area “resulting in a monotonous dead tonal concept” (Lucarelli, 1988, p. 15).

Mr. Lucarelli believes that tension is the biggest issue that a young player encounters. Tension “prevents a natural flow not only of tone and a decent vibrato, but of music and talent” (Lucarelli, 1988, p. 15). Most tension issues arise from inadequate breath support. This tension can create problems from the throat, shoulders, hands, and torso. He recommends relaxing and taking nice deep breaths (Lucarelli, 1988, p.

15). To ease tension, Lucarelli encourages players to become aware of their bodies.

Lucarelli is a proponent of yoga and Alexander Technique to help with the demands on the body when performing.

Mr. Lucarelli has always “looked for the consistencies in great players” to emulate in his teaching practices (H. Lucarelli, personal communication, March 15,

2011). During a master class at the Hartt School of Music, a student asked Mr. Lucarelli why he did not teach them to puff their cheeks. All of the professional oboists that taught in the master class had a small puff of air in their cheeks. Lucarelli began to notice this consistency between him and other famous oboists. After studying the concept, Mr. Lucarelli figured out that “when you puff your cheeks it’s virtually impossible to close your throat” (H. Lucarelli, personal communication, March 15, 2011).

Puffing your cheeks is “an extremely beneficial way of getting the air forward in the

58 mouth onto the reed in a way that makes it almost impossible to close the throat….it also seems to enable them to release tension in the oral-pharyngeal cavity” (Lucarelli,

1988, p. 16). This leads to students, “holding their embouchure in a tension-free manner, without biting, while relaxing everything behind it, resulting in a very efficient and flexible use of both the embouchure and the air, which are profoundly interdependent” (Lucarelli, 1988, p. 16). The puff can be in one or both cheeks and should be at or below the lips. The puff is an essential part of the embouchure that

Lucarelli builds in his students. The following pictures were taken of Lucarelli at different times in his career. One consistent embouchure attribute is the small puff in the cheeks just below the line of the lips.

Illustration 9: Front View Illustration 10: Side View

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Illustration 11: Front View Early 1970’s Illustration 12: Side Angle

The puff is a central part of the embouchure that is unique to Lucarelli’s teaching. It can be observed in many great players. This may be an attribute that happens naturally when one is playing correctly and may not be overtly taught by prominent oboe teachers.

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CHAPTER 8

Conclusion

As of the writing of this document, Mr. Lucarelli spends much of his time teaching at the Hartt School of Music, Purchase College, and New York University. In his last decade as a soloist, Lucarelli premiered some new works and made the last few recordings of his career. When Lucarelli was in the sixth grade, his teacher, Zita Maney, taught him how to channel his imagination toward tangible goals” (H. Lucarelli, personal communication, March 15, 2011). This early teaching helped Lucarelli create his career.

Looking back on his long career in the spotlight, Lucarelli expressed to me that, “It still does strike me that I did what I did. I just did it. There were no big plans” (H. Lucarelli, personal communication, March 15, 2011). Mr. Lucarelli had a burning desire to be an excellent oboist.

Throughout Mr. Lucarelli’s career, his entrepreneurial mind-set led him to bring the oboe to new audiences. He learned how to market his name, create programs that audience members would enjoy, and arrange programs that would be funded by people and organizations.

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Mr. Lucarelli’s career was not calculated but had very key relationships that helped him succeed. Lucarelli became friends with a professional advertiser who helped him brand his name. Lucarelli recalled:

Years ago I met a very important advertising person. At the age of twenty-eight he was voted advertising man of the year internationally. He invented the phrase ‘Put a tiger in your tank.’ That was his concoction. We were friends. He did my first brochure for my first concert in New York. And so we discussed should my name be Bert, Humbert, Lucarelli, what should it be? He got me to talk about the whole oboe business. So I started to name the players; Bob Bloom, Marc Lifschey, all these shortened names. Nobody used their full names. And he said, ‘Like baseball players. Reggie Jackson. It’s not Reginald. So oboe players are like that. So your name has to be Bert. You can’t be Humbert.’ So he was the one who established my using the name Bert all during the early part of my career (H. Lucarelli, personal communication, November 15, 2010).

In addition to this name branding, Mr. Lucarelli used professional photographer

Christian Steiner to have press photos created for advertising. This photographer later took photos for many of New York’s most prominent musicians. (See Illustration 12, 13)

Mr. Lucarelli also created new and interesting programs. He wanted to continue to make recordings and needed funding to cover the costs.

I never had trouble raising money for something that was interesting. You have to understand the context of what is interesting. One of the records I did, the one with the Bloom pieces, the Winters Passed, etc… That was funded by the National Endowment for the Arts in Washington. I knew what they wanted. They wanted to support American Music. So I put together a program of American music with Alec Wilder, The Winters Passed by Barlow, Bloom pieces, and the Corigliano. So you figure out what they are looking for and you put together something that they are going to want to fund. It’s not complicated (H. Lucarelli, personal communication, November 13, 2010).

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Illustration 13: (Front cover of concert flyer, Late 1970’s Photo by Christian

Steiner)

63

Illustration 14: (Back side of concert flyer, Late 1970’s. Photo by Tony Vaccaro.)

Mr. Lucarelli creatively combined programs that could be funded by organizations and private donors. Private donors funded accompanists, full orchestras,

64 and record productions throughout his entire career. Lucarelli believes that one should not be afraid or pass on challenges because of the intimidating quality of important people. When passionate about endeavors, other people will recognize this and support your art. How people perceive you and your willingness to take chances will play a role determining your success (H. Lucarelli, personal communication, November

15, 2010).

Future musicians can learn from Mr. Lucarelli’s career. Lucarelli believes that musicians should create new ideas that are interesting and not solely rely on major ensembles for artistic expression and employment. Lucarelli asked one of the critics,

“Why do you always come to my concerts? And he said, ‘You are always doing something weird or something interesting.’ I thought I was just doing a recital with an idea attached to it. Today they call it thematic programming… just have an interesting idea” (H. Lucarelli, personal communication, November, 15, 2010). Who will have the passion to become the next great American oboe soloist?

Future Research

In my quest to find out information about Humbert Lucarelli and his career, I was astonished by the multitude of well-known people that he came in contact with. I believe it would be worthwhile to research the relationships he had with famous personalities. Some of these personalities would include other famous oboists. It would be of interest to research the many oboists who have come to Mr. Lucarelli throughout 65 his career for help and guidance. It would also be worthwhile to research the recordings that he made with large group ensembles. The concerto by John Corigliano also has many promising angles of research. It would be beneficial to have the story of the concerto through the composer’s eyes. The composer was contacted during the writing of this document, but did not have the time to offer me any insight. Throughout Mr.

Lucarelli’s career he premiered over one hundred works for oboe. He explained to me that there were so many pieces he could never begin to remember them all. I believe this would be the most promising area of research to add to my findings.

66

Bibliography

Burgess, G.,& Haynes, B. (2004). The oboe. New Haven, CT and London: Yale University Press.

Bloom, Sara. (1991, March/April). Humbert Lucarelli, oboe. American Record Guide, 34 (2).

Campbell, M. (1986, October 30). Oboist’s solo flights successful. The Chicago Tribune, p.E8.

Corigliano, J. (1975). Concerto for Oboe and Orchestra. New York, NY: G. Schirmer.

Corigliano, J. (2010). John Corigliano. Retrieved from http://www.fineartsmgmt.com/artists/corigliano.htm

Davis, P. (1974, February 22). Bach Aria Group offers 7 arias, 2 cantatas. The New York Times, p.25.

Ericson, R. (1979, April 13). A master of the oboe in recital at ‘Y.’ The New York Times p.C15.

Geisler, K. (2009). {Liner Notes}. Gran Partita. Berkley, CA: Well Tempered Productions.

Henahan, D. (1975, November 10). Music: The American Symphony opens with two premieres. The New York Times, p. 40.

Howe, R., & R. Moore. (2010) Records: The Double Reed 2(1), retrieved from http://idrs.colorado.edu/Publications/DR/DR2.1/records.html.

Hughes, A. (1972, February 21). Venice gets tribute on oboe and strings. The New York Times, p.36.

Hughes, A. (1970, November 16). Lucarelli, oboist, is a lyric delight. The New York Times, p.45.

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Hughes, A. (1973, May 13). Lucarelli mixes pop and classic. The New York Times, p. 58.

Jacobson, R. (1971, September). New York’s pied piper, Bert Lucarelli plays everything from Mozart to acid rock: After Dark, p.30-2.

Janet K. Page, et al. (2010) Oboe. Grove Music Online. Oxford Music Online. Retrieved from http://www.oxfordmusiconline.com.proxy.lib.ohio- state.edu/subscriber/article/grove/music/40450

Klein, H. (1964, May 22). Oboe recital given by Bert Lucarelli. The New York Times, p.41.

Klein, H. (1967, April 27). Humbert Lucarelli gives oboe recital. The New York Times, p.52.

Lucarelli, H. (1988, May). No easy answers. The Instrumentalist, 42(10), 12-16.

Lucarelli, H. (2004). {Liner Notes}. Bach by Bert {CD}. Camas, WA: Crystal Records

Vittes, L. (2004, September) Bach by Bert {Review}. Gramophone 82:983, p. A15

Wald, Caryl. (1973, May 19). Bert Lucarelli with the Musemorphoses. The Press, p.14.

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APPENDIX A: Discography of Humbert Lucarelli

This discography contains recordings that are commercial solo recordings that feature oboist Humbert Lucarelli. Some of the recordings may include as little as one solo or chamber work with Humbert Lucarelli. There are many performance recordings that are not included as they were not for public purchase and have not been edited.

The recordings in this discography are listed chronologically. Some of the recordings were printed without dates as was typical of some companies when they printed on

LP’s. Recordings without dates are listed in the approximate order based on conversations with the artist. These recordings are of solo and chamber works and do not attempt to list any recordings which the artist performed as a member of a large scale ensemble. Mr. Lucarelli has recorded with Igor Stravinsky, Leopold Stokowski, the

Bach Aria Group and many more. The artist throughout his career has recorded with various symphonic organizations, record dates, jingles, and other recording opportunities. The final entries of this discography contain a list of albums/compact discs that use individual tracks from previously recorded material already listed in this discography.

69

1

Carl Nielsen, The Lark Woodwind Quintet, Produced by The Musical Heritage Society (n.d. ) MHS1004

This recording features flutist John Wion, clarinetist Arthur Bloom, bassoonist Alan Brown, and French hornist William Brown. The Lark Woodwind Quintet performs the complete works for winds by Carl Nielson. Humbert Lucarelli performs in the following tracks:

1. Quintet for Wind Instruments, Op.43 2. Two Fantasias, Op. 2 for Oboe and Piano

2

Serenade No.10 in B Flat Major, K.361, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Produced by Musical Heritage Society 1968, MHS 855

This recording features the group Musica Viva conducted by James Bolle. The jacket cover also features a full picture of Humbert Lucarelli. The recording was reissued in 2008 by Well Tempered Productions.

1. Serenade in B Flat Major K.361 by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart

3

Britten, Published by Lyrichord 1968 LLST-7195

This recording features oboist Humbert Lucarelli and the New Arts String Trio performing chamber music of Benjamin Britten.

1. Six Metamorphoses after Ovid 2. Phantasy Quartet for oboe, violin, viola, and cello

70

4

Telemann’s Oboe: The Six Partitas. Produced by Musical Heritage Society 1968, MHS996, MHS997

This recording features oboist Humbert Lucarelli, bassoonist Alan Brown, and harpsichordist Gerald Ranck. Tracks 7-11 are pieces for oboe and harpsichord.

1. Partita No.1 in B Flat Major 2. Partita No. 2 in G Major 3. Partita No.3 in g minor 4. Partita No.4 in g minor 5. Partita No.5 in e minor 6. Partita No.6 in E Flat Major 7. Sonata in A minor 8. L’Hiver (Winter) 9. Naise 10. Napolitana 11. Air Trompette

5

Patricia Brooks in Recital, Produced by Video Arts International 1971, VAI 1270

This recording is a live recording from a 1971 New York Recital of Patricia Brooks. Humbert Lucarelli is the oboe soloist in several works.

1. Seufzer, Tranen, Kummer, Not 2. Rondo by Johann Christian Bach

6

Two Instrumental Units by Stephan Wolpe, Produced by Opus One 1971, #9

This recording also features works by Francis Thorne. Humbert Lucarelli performs on the Work by Stephan Wolpe with David Gilbert conductor.

1. Two Instrumental Units by Stephan Wolpe

71

7

Poem VI and Poem VII by David Gilbert, Produced by Opus One 1973, #13.

This recording features Humbert Lucarelli performing a work for solo oboe.

1. Piece VII for solo oboe by David Gilbert

8

Trio for Violin Cello and Piano, by George Rochberg. Produced by Turnabout 1973,

This recording has multiple works. Humbert Lucarelli is featured in a trio with bassoonist Arthur Bloom and clarinetist Donald MacCourt.

1. Trio for oboe, bassoon, and clarinet by Donald Waxman

9

Presidio 27: Roman de Fauvel: Two Studies for Woodwind Quintet, Produced by Opus One (n.d.), #8

This recording features woodwind quintet music by Andrew Thomas with Humbert Lucarelli on oboe.

1. Two Studies for Woodwind Quintet by Andrew Thomas

10

Two English Oboe Quintets, Produced by The Musical Heritage Society (1977) MHS3521

This recording features Humbert Lucarelli and the Manhattan String Quartet performing oboe quintets.

1. Quintet for Oboe and String Quartet by Sir Arnold Bax 2. Quintet for Oboe and String Quartet by Sir Arthur Bliss

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11

Oboe Sonatas of Hindemith, Poulenc, and Saint-Saëns, Produced by Lyrichord (1979), LLST7320

This recording features oboist Humbert Lucarelli and pianist Thomas Hrynkiv performing standard oboe repertoire.

1. Sonata for Oboe and Piano by Paul Hindemith 2. Sonata for Oboe and Piano by Francis Poulenc 3. Sonata for Oboe and Piano by Charles Camille Saint-Saëns 4. Two Pieces for Oboe and Piano by Charles Edouard Lefebvre

12

Corigliano, The American Symphony Orchestra, Kazuyoshi Akiyama Conductor, Produced by RCA Victor 1978, 60395-2-RG

This premiere recording features Humbert Lucarelli performing the Concerto for Oboe and String Orchestra by John Corigliano. This work was premiered by and written for Humbert Lucarelli. It was later rereleased by RCA/BMG Classics in 1990. Mr. Lucarelli is featured on two works on this recording.

1. Concerto for Oboe (1976) by John Corigliano 2. Poem in October for tenor, flute, oboe, clarinet, string quartet & harpsichord by John Corigliano

13

Newport Music Festival 1979, Produced by Newport Music Festival 1979, 41271

This recording features many live performances. Two works feature oboist Humbert Lucarelli and pianist Thomas Hyrnkiv.

1. Piece V by Cesar Frank 2. Im Fruhling by Franz Schubert

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14

The Sensual Sound of the Soulful Oboe, Produced by Jonella Record Company 1981, JRC1

This recording features well known classical tunes arranged for oboe, guitars, strings and percussion. This was Mr. Lucarelli’s first crossover recording.

1. Aranjuez by Rodrigo 2. Serenade by Schubert 3. The Pearlfishers by Bizet 4. London Derry Air 5. Romance by Anon 6. El Condor Pasa 7. Playera by Granados 8. Barcarolle by Jacques Offenbach 9. Loving Eyes 10. Estrellita by Manuel M. Ponce

15

Robert Baksa, Produced by Musical Heritage Society 1981, MHS48957

This recording features Humbert Lucarelli performing with strings. This recording was later reissued by Capstone Records CPS 8610 CD.

1. Quintet for Oboe and Strings (1972) by Robert Baksa

16

Sensazione II per Oboe Solista e Alcuni Strumenti, by Larry Singer Produced by Opus One 1983, #160

This recording features Lucarelli performing one work.

1. Sensazione II per Oboe Solista e Alcuni Strumenti by Larry Singer

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17

More Sensual Sounds of the Soulful Oboe, Produced by Jonella Records 1984, JRC-3

This recording is a sequel to the original recording of the 1981 Sensual Sound of the Soulful Oboe featuring Oboist Humbert Lucarelli with guitars, strings, and percussion.

1. Bolero by Maurice Ravel 2. Elegie by Jules Massenet 3. Feelings by Albert 4. Kanon by Pachelbel 5. Selections from the Swan Lake Ballet by Peter Tchaikovsky 6. Winter from the Four Seasons by Vivaldi 7. Theme from Concerto #2 for piano by Rachmaninoff 8. Polovetsian Dances by Borodin

18

French Baroque Trio Sonatas, Produced by Pantheon 1984, FSM 63906

This recording features oboist Humbert Lucarelli, flutist Renee Siebert, and harpsichordist Judith Norell.

1. Pieces de Clavecin en Concerts Suite #5 by Jean Philipe Rameau 2. Oboe Sonata in d minor by Danican Philidor 3. Three Pieces by Francois Couperin 4. Recreations, Opus 8 No. 2 by Jean Marie-Leclair

19

The Relaxing Magic of the Oboe, Produced by Heartland Music 1986, HD 1045/1046

This recording features Humbert Lucarelli performing well known popular music hits. This music was a repackaging of the Sensual Sound of the Soulful Oboe and More Sensual Sounds of the Soulful Oboe.

1. Memory 2. Love Me Tender 3. Release Me 4. Amazing Grace 5. If I Loved You 6. Somewhere My Love 75

7. Green,Green Grass Of Home 8. Feelings 9. Yesterday 10. The Twelfth Of Never 11. Annie's Song 12. Scarlet Ribbons 13. Are You Lonesome Tonight 14. Polovetsian Dance Melody 15. Bolero 16. Danny Boy 17. Barcarole 18. Dark Eyes 19. Full Moon And Empty Arms 20. Schubert's Serenade 21. Swan Lake Ballet 22. Romance

20

Delightful Debussy, Produced by Special Music Company 1987, 4531

This recording features oboist Humbert Lucarelli and harpist Susan Jolles performing their arrangements of Debussy. Some of these arrangements are available in print through International Music Publishers.

1. Reverie, for Piano, L.68 2. Beau soir 3. Petite Suite L. 65 menuet 4. Arabesque L. 66 No. 1 in E Major 5. Arabesque, L. 66 No 2 in G major 6. Clair de lune, L. 75/3 7. Le Petite Berger 8. La plus que lente, L. 121 9. Petite suite, L. 65 No 1, En Bateau 10. Children's Corner, L. 113 No 1, Doctor Gradus ad Parnassum 11. Pour le piano, L. 95 No 1, Prelude 12. La Fille aux Cheveux de Lin 13. Bruyere 14. Rêverie, L. 68

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21

Pop Goes the Oboe, Produced by Special Music 1988,

This recording features oboist Humbert Lucarelli, pianist Angelo Dipeppo performing arrangements of popular melodies.

1. Annies Song 2. Somewhere My Love 3. Yesterday 4. If I loved You 5. Release Me 6. Love Me Tender 7. Memory 8. Scarlet Ribbons 9. Are You Lonesome 10. Twelfth of Never 11. Amazing Grace 12. Green Grass

22

The Bel Canto Oboe, Bert Lucarelli and Friends, Produced by Crown Publishers 1988, D21062.

This recording features oboist Bert Lucarelli, Pianist Thomas Hrynkiw, Manhattan String Quartet, Harpist Susan Jolles, and Guitarist Simon Wynberg.

1. Fantaisie On Donizetti’s Lucrezia Borgia by A.M.R. Barret arr.Richard Price 2. Adagio Cantabile for oboe and piano by G. Vogt 3. Fantaisie Concertant on Rossini’s The Barber of Seville for oboe and guitar by H. Garimond 4. Fantaisie on Massenet’s Le Cid for oboe and harp by T. Lalliet 5. Fantaisie Concertant on Bellini’s I Puritani for oboe and piano by H. Garimond; 6. Fantasie sur un Air Limousin for oboe and guitar by C.L Triebert 7. Fantasie Concertant on Bellini’s Norma for oboe and harp by H. Garimond 8. Fantaisie Brillante on Meyerbeer’s L’Africaine for oboe and strings by F. Berthelemy

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23

Debussy: Music for Oboe and Harp, Produced by Stradivari Classics 1990, SCD-6034.

This recording features oboist Humbert Lucarelli and harpist Susan Jolles playing arrangements of music by Claude Debussy. This recording is a reissue of Delightful Debussy, 1987.

1. Reverie, for Piano, L.68 2. Beau soir 3. Petite Suite L. 65 menuet 4. Arabesque L. 66 No. 1 in E Major 5. Arabesque, L. 66 No 2 in G major 6. Clair de lune, L. 75/3 7. Children's Corner, L. 113 No 5, The Little Shepherd 8. La plus que lente, L. 121 9. Petite suite, L. 65 No 1, En Bateau 10. Children's Corner, L. 113 No 1, Doctor Gradus ad Parnassum 11. Pour le piano, L. 95 No 1, Prelude 12. La Fille aux Cheveux de Lin 13. Rêverie, L. 68

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O’Baroque, Music for Three Oboes and Strings, Produced by MCA Classics 1990, MCAD- 6402.

This recording features three well known oboists, Humbert Lucarelli, Joseph Robinson, and Alex Klein performing arrangements for three oboes accompanied by the New Brandenburg Collegium Orchestra conducted from the harpsichord by Anthony Newman.

1. Entrance of the Queen of Sheba by G. F. Handel 2. Overture in C Major by George Phillip Telemann 3. Concerto in C Major by Tomaso Albinoni 4. Overture in g minor by George Phillip Telemann

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25

Oboe Concertos, Humbert Lucarelli and the Lehigh Valley Chamber Orchestra, Donald Spieth Conductor. Produced by Koch International 1990, 2-7023-4

This recording features oboist Humbert Lucarelli performing various concertos and pieces with strings.

1. Canzonetta for Oboe and String Orchestra by Samuel Barber 2. Concerto for Oboe and Small Orchestra by Richard Strauss 3. Idillio Concertino for Oboe and Strings by Ermanno Wolf-Ferrari 4. Concerto for Oboe and Strings by Ralph Vaughan Williams

26

Everybody’s Favorite Wedding Music, Produced by Essex Entertainment 1991,

This recording features director and oboist Humbert Lucarelli and the Philharmonic Wedding Ensemble performing wedding music.

1. Albinoni / Moonlight Sonata 2. The Wedding Song 3. Marriage of Figaro 4. Bridal March 5. O, Promise Me 6. Pachelbel’s Canon 7. There Is Love 8. Kiss Me Again 9. Because 10. I Love You Truly 11. Melody of Love 12. My Hero 13. They Didn’t Believe Me 14. Sunrise, Sunset 15. Love Me Tender 16. Love Song 17. More 18. Traumerie 19. Wedding March

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27

Debussy by the Sea, Produced by Special Music 1992, SCD-4962

This recording is a reissue of Debussy: Music for Oboe and Harp (See #19 for track listing) with the sound of ocean waves added.

28

Sounds of Paradise: Music from the Garden of Eden, Produced by Special Music 1992,

This recording features oboist Humbert Lucarelli, guitarist Jay Berliner, and Pianist Angelo Dipippo. The recording is comprised of well know classical tunes with the sounds of the ocean surf.

1. Romance 2. Playera 3. Romance (Reprise) 4. Playera (Reprise) 5. Romeo & Juliet 6. Mon Amor 7. Solace 8. O Sole Mio 9. Dark Eyes 10. Solace (Reprise) 11. O Sole Mio (Reprise) 12. Dark Eyes (reprise) 13. Waves of the Danube 14. Waves of the Danube (Reprise) 15. Fascination 16. Fascination (Reprise) 17. Elegie 18. Elegie (Reprise) 19. Vienna, City of Dreams 20. Vienna, City of Dreams (Reprise) 21. Greensleeves 22. Greensleeves (Reprise) 23. Beautiful Dreamer 24. Ave Maria

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29

Wind and Reed, Produced by Narada Lotus 1993, sB013

Humbert Lucarelli is featured in one work of this recording using a technique called over dubbing.

1. To the Willow by Simon Wynberg

30

Telemann’s Oboe: The Six Partitas. Produced by Well Tempered Productions 1994, WTP5169

This recording is a reissue of the 1968 Musical Heritage Society recording MHS996, MHS997. The recording features oboist Humbert Lucarelli, Bassoonist Alan Brown, and Harpsichordist Gerald Ranck.

1. Partita No.1 in B Flat Major 2. Partita No. 2 in G Major 3. Partita No.3 in g minor 4. Partita No.4 in g minor 5. Partita No.5 in e minor 6. Partita No.6 in E Flat Major

31

Simon , Produced by Narada Lotus 1993, LC6362

The music of guitarist Simon Wynberg. Humbert Lucarelli is featured in one work on this recording.

1. Bert’s Cafe

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32

For the Friends of Alec Wilder: Orchestral Works by America’s Master Alec Wilder, Produced by Newport Classics 1994, NPD 85570

This recording features multiple works by Alec Wilder. Humbert Lucarelli is soloist in one of the works.

1. Air for Oboe by Alec Wilder

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Humbert Lucarelli, Brooklyn Philharmonic conducted by Michael Barrett, Produced by Koch International 1994, 3-7187-2

This recording includes music for oboe and strings and oboe and percussion by American composers. Humbert Lucarelli is featured on all works. Mark Wood percussionist is featured on track 6. This recording is also a premiere recording of Aria for Oboe and Strings by John Corigliano.

1. The Winter’s Passed By Wayne Barlow 2. Concerto for Oboe, Orchestra, and Percussion by Alec Wilder 3. Requiem by Robert Bloom 4. Narrative by Robert Bloom 5. Aria for Oboe and Strings by John Corigliano 6. Piece for Oboe and Improvisatory Percussion by Alec Wilder

34

Henry Cowell, Produced by Koch International 1994, 3-7282-2H1

This recording features the Manhattan Chamber Orchestra conducted by Richard Auldon Clark. Humbert Lucarelli is soloist performing one of the works.

1. Hymn and Fuguing Tune No. 10 for oboe and strings by Henry Cowell

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35

Music for My Time: Brunch with Friends, Produced by Special Music Company 1995, SCD-5189

This recording features numerous performers including oboist Humbert Lucarelli.

1. Claire de Lune by Claude Debussy arr. for oboe and harp

36

The Sounds of Remembered Dreams, Music of the fin-de-siecle for Oboe, Bassoon, and Harp. Produced by Vox Classics 1995, VOX 7504

This recording features oboist Humbert Lucarelli, Bassoonists Frank Morelli, and Harpist Susan Jolles performing arrangements of classical French music.

1. Pavane pour une infante défunte, by Maurice Ravel 2. Le roi s'amuse, Passepied by Leo Delibes 3. Après un rêve ("Dans un sommeil") by Gabriel Faure 4. The Swan (from "Carnival of the Animals") by Camille Saint-Saens 5. Les contes d'Hoffmann, opera in 4 acts Barcarolle by Jacques Offenbach 6. Méditation (from opera "Thäis") by Jules Massenet 7. Vocalise-Étude en forme de Habanera by Maurice Ravel 8. Plaisir d'amour, for voice & piano (or orchestra) by Johann Paul Aegidius Martini 9. Gymnopedie No.1 by Erik Satie 10. Golliwogg's Cakewalk by Claude Debussy 11. Gnossienne,No.1 by Erik Satie 12. Gnossienne, No.2 by Erik Satie 13. Scarf Dance by Cecile Chaminade 14. Je te veux (I Want You) by Erik Satie 15. Romances sans paroles by Gabriel Faure 16. Roméo et Juliette, opera Aira by Charles Gounod 17. Sicilienne, Op. 78 by Gabriel Faure 18. Pavane, Op. 50 by Gabriel Faure

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37

Music of Steven Gryc, Produced by Opus One 1995, #166

This recording features music for winds by the composer Stephen Gryc. Humbert Lucarelli is featured on several of the works presented on this recording along with flutist John Wion, harpsichordist Harmon Lewis, and the New World Chamber Ensemble.

1. Six Mechanicals from A Midsummer Night’s Dream for oboe, flute, and harpsichord 2. Three Excursions for solo oboe 3. Fantasy Var on a Theme by Bela Bartok for oboe and string quartet

38

Oeuvres varies, by Jaques Ibert, Produced by Newport Classics 1996, NPTC 85598

This recording features multiple works by the composer. Humbert Lucarelli is the soloist in one of the works with the Manhattan Chamber Orchestra conducted by Richard Auldon Clark. This recording was reissued in 2003.

1. Symphonie Concertante for Oboe and String Orchestra by Jaques Ibert

39

Seis Sonatas Para Dois Oboes Baixo Continuo by G.F. Handel, Produced by Paulus 1998, 229-04117-091

This recording features oboists Humbert Lucarelli and Arcadio Minczuk, bassoonist Fabio Cury, and harpsichordist Helena Jank performing double oboe sonatas. This recording was made in Sao Paolo, Brazil.

1. Sonata 1 in B Flat Major 2. Sonata 2 in d minor 3. Sonata 3 in E flat Major 4. Sonata 4 in F Major 5. Sonata 5 in G Major 6. Sonata 6 in D Major

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40

Humbert Lucarelli Live in Seoul, Produced by Eagon Wood Products 1999,

This recording is a compilation of pieces Humbert Lucarelli recorded live while on tour in South Korea. Most or the pieces include string quartet and harp.

1. Concerto for oboe in d minor by Alessandro Marcello 2. Fantasie on the Barber of Seville by Gioacchino Rossini arr. by Humbert Lucarelli 3. Quartet in F Major for oboe and strings, K370 by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart 4. Selections from Delightful Debussy by Claude Debussy arr. by Humbert Lucarelli 5. Selections from the Sensual Sound of the Soulful Oboe, If I Loved You, El Condor Pasa 6. Gabriel’s Oboe by Ennio Morricone, arr. by J. Harrell 7. My Heart Will Go On by James Horner, arr. by J. Harrell 8. When I Dream by Carol Kidd, arr. by J. Harrell

41

Composers of the Holocaust: Ghetto Songs and Instrumental Works, Produced by Leonarda Productions 2000, B00006BNAO

This recording features music of composers who died in the Holocaust. There is one work featuring Humbert Lucarelli as oboist.

1. Suite for oboe and piano by Pavel Haas

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42

Gotham Ensemble Plays Ned Rorem – Produced by Albany Records 2002, TROY520

This recording features oboist Humbert Lucarelli and pianist Delores Stevens performing Ned Rorem’s An Oboe Book, Nine Pieces for Oboe and Piano which was written for and premiered by Mr. Lucarelli. This is a premiere recording of the work.

1. A Mirror 2. Nine to Three 3. Marriage Measures 4. 77 notes for Rose 5. 60 Notes for Judy 6. Sarabande for Jim 7. Epitaph for Jim 8. 7 Answers 9. Until Next Time

43

Bach by Bert. Produced by Crystal Records 2004, CD726

This recording includes an unaccompanied Partita, Sonatas with cembalo and harpsichord, and Sinfonias with orchestra.

1. Sinfonia from Cantata 156 Ich Steh’ mit einem Fuss im grabe 2. Partita in g minor for unaccompanied oboe trans. by Humbert Lucarelli from the Partita in a minor for flute BWV1013. 3. Sonata in g minor BWV 1030b 4. Sinfonia from Easter Oratorio 5. Sinfonia from Cantata 12

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The following list of recordings includes one or more works from either The Sounds of Remembered Dreams, The Sensual Sound of the Soulful Oboe and Debussy: Music for Oboe and Harp.

Love Poems to Music, Produced by Vox Records 1999

Movie Classics, Produced by Vox Classics 1996

Musical Moods 2, Produced by Masterpiece Records 1999

Quiet Night: Tranquil Classics, Produced by Special Music 1989

Romantic Collection, Produced by Special Music 1989

Seventy Five Great Classics Vol. 1, Produced by Masterpiece Records 1999

Stradivari Sampler Vol.3, Produced by Stradivari Classics 1989

25 Candlelight Favorites, Produced by Vox 1996

Twenty Five Classical Favorites, Produced by Vox 1996

25 Sentimental Favorites, Produced by Vox 1996

Unforgettable: Music to Remember By, Produced by Special Music 1998

Very Best of Romantic Classics, Produced by Vox 1993

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APPENDIX B: International Music Publishing’s

Throughout Lucarelli’s career he has been active as an arranger and editor of performance editions. He has arranged many works that have not been published but have been recorded. The following is a list of performance editions and arrangements of works that are published through International Music Publishers.

Debussy, Claude (1862-1918) Five Pieces for Oboe (or Flute) and Harp (or Piano) Transcribed and edited by Humbert Lucarelli and Susan Jolles c1993 d’Indy, Vincent (1851-1931) Fantasie, Opus 31 Edited by Humbert Lucarelli c1995

Mozart, Wolfgang Amadeus (1756-1791) Adagio in G Major, K.580a Edited by Humbert Lucarelli Piano part Transcribed by Freidrich Koch c1990

Mozart, Wolfgang Amadeus (1756-1791) Adagio, k, 580a for Oboe and string trio Transcribed and edited by Humbert Lucarelli c1990

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Mozart, Wolfgang Amadeus (1756-1791) Quintet in c minor. K. 388/406 for oboe and string quartet Transcribed and edited by Humbert Lucarelli c2000

Rachmaninoff, Sergei (1873-1943) Vocalise, Op. 34, No. 14 Transcribed and edited by Humbert Lucarelli c1994

Schumann, Robert (1810-1856) Adagio and Allegro in A Flat Major, Opus 70 Transcribed and edited by Humbert Lucarelli c1992

Schumann, Robert (1810-1856) Adagio Espressivo. Opus 61 for oboe and string quartet Transcribed from Symphony No.2 and edited by Humbert Lucarelli c1998

Schumann, Robert (1810-1856) Sonata in A minor, Opus 105 Originally for Violin and piano Transcribed and edited by Humbert Lucarelli c2001

Schumann, Robert (1810-1856) Sonata in A minor, Opus 121 Transcribed and edited by Humbert Lucarelli c2001

Schumann Robert (1810-1856) Three Romances, op. 94 Edited by Humbert Lucarelli c2003

Vivaldi, Antonio (1678-1741) Sonata in C minor, RV 53 Edited by Humbert Lucarelli c1994

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APPENDIX C: Personal Interviews with Humbert Lucarelli

Interview with Humbert Lucarelli November 13, 2010

BW: So you took a job playing with the North East Pennsylvania Philharmonic?

BL: Yes. That was the first concerto that I performed.

BW: What did you play?

BL: I played the Martinů. It was the first concerto I ever played with orchestra.

BW: Why did you pick that piece?

BL: The conductor of that orchestra was Beatrice Brown. She used to bring me in from

New York to play with the orchestra. She liked my playing so she asked me to do a concerto. She liked contemporary music. Her early training was at Tanglewood when

Tanglewood was so into contemporary music at the time. She was in the same class as

Leonard Bernstein and Seiji Ozawa at Tanglewood. She was quite a person.

BW: So what happened to her?

BL: You know, a women conductor fifty years ago…..

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BW: Have you ever been asked to enter the back door as a musician?

BL: Oh yes, I remember this big impresario in Chicago. I was playing with the Royal

Ballet. We were running behind and the only way I could get into the pit in time was to run through the front door and jump down into the pit and play. And he saw and he said to us “the orchestra does not come through the front door.” And I said to him, “I bet you think that’s great.”

BW: When did that take place?

BL: In Chicago, in the mid sixties. I played with the Royal Ballet for three years on their

United States tour, their American tour. What they would do is they would bring over a concert master. They would hire principal players in New York and they would hire second players in whatever cities we toured in and the rest of the string section.

We would do major cities May through August. LA, Atlanta, New Orleans, Chicago,

Cleveland, and they would only carry principal players. They would fill in the section when we got to those cities.

In Chicago, that’s when that happened. The guys name was Harry Seltzer. He was an impresario in Chicago. He thought he was a big shot. It was a wonderful job! The repertoire was so wonderful. The classical ballet repertoire is unbelievable. Romeo and

Juliet, the Prokofiev, I did maybe fifty to seventy-five performances of it. The dancers were unbelievable. They were the superstar dancers of all time. Do you know Rudolf

Nureyev? Does that name ring a bell? He was the first Russian to defect. He was the

91 most athletic dancer of all. He would jump up and stay up in the air for like twenty minutes. He would do stuff that was just amazing. He was an incredible human being. I got to know him. We became friends. He was such a funny person.

BW: Did you play much in Washington DC?

BL: Not a lot. I played at the Kennedy Center, Royal Ballet, several orchestras, and I think one of the Stravinsky Concerts. So, not a lot.

BW: So the Lark Woodwind Quintet, your group did the complete works for winds by

Nielson?

BL: Yes! It was the quintet and other pieces like the opus two for oboe. The flute player did something called the Lark. It was incidental music. We found enough stuff. About what we are talking about.

That is what people need to learn how to do…they need to learn how to be creative, intrinsic, creating ideas that are interesting. You know what Brad I got to tell you something. I never had trouble raising money for something that was interesting. You have to understand the context of what is interesting but really ….

One of the records I did…the one with the Bloom pieces, the Winters Passed, etc… That was funded by the National Endowment for the Arts in Washington. I knew what they wanted. They wanted to support American music. So I put together a program of

American music with Alec Wilder, The Winter’s Passed by Barlow, Blooms pieces, and

92 the Corigliano. So, you figure out what they are looking for and you put together something that they are going to want to fund. It’s not complicated.

BW: Do you have to be somebody like you to get it done?

BL: No. You could do it! You just have to sort of think that way. There is nothing wrong with it. I don’t feel like I prostituted myself. I knew what they wanted and I knew what I could do. So I presented it to them and they said it was a great idea. Oboe Music by

American Composers of the Twentieth Century. I knew what they wanted. You have to know your audience in the end. You have to know where they are coming from. What they are interested in.

Also it’s what you are able to do. That for me was fine. The Barlow was right up my alley. The Bloom I loved and the Alec Wilder pieces were very interesting for me. Do you know who he was?

BW: I kind of know about him and his music.

BL: He was one of the original cross over composers. The program was just perfect.

First, you have to think about what you can do without prostituting yourself and still match their needs. They will go for it…Everytime I have ever been involved … Because your effort is sincere.

BW: So Alec Wilder.

BL: He was an interesting guy. He loved jazz and was a classical musician. He wrote songs for Frank Sinatra. 93

BW: He had a connection with Mitch Miller didn’t he?

BL: Exactly. He was a little off, not quite a center person. When you listen to the concerto you can sense some jazz. It was composed for oboe, string orchestra, and traps. Does that tell you where he is coming from? Then there’s that funny piece at the end of the recording for oboe and percussion. The story on that is that we did the album and suddenly we realized we didn’t have enough music for a CD. It was about forty seven minutes, not enough for a CD. A CD should have fifty something minutes minimum. So I had to find another piece. I went crazy looking for another piece. I didn’t want to do something with oboe and piano. It wasn’t appropriate to mix with oboe and strings. The tonality of the piano just wasn’t appropriate. The moment you heard the piano you would have been ……

So I stumbled on to this piece that he wrote for oboe and improvised percussion. So I got this music. It was just an oboe part. The percussion was to be totally improvised.

So I had this student who played oboe and had been to the California School for the Arts which is a very jazz out there school. And I asked him if he wanted to do the percussion part for this and he said he would. So we went to the recording studio. I still remember it. It was on a Sunday morning at the recording studio in Queens. It was the last thing we had to put on the album. So he showed up to the studio, the engineer was there and we got the studio for free. We start recording and the kid freaked. He froze.

He couldn’t do it. It was like he was recording with his teacher. It was too much. He just apologized, so we shut down the session. He went home and the engineer said “lets

94 record it anyway we will use a click track. Then I can come in with a percussionist and we will overdub and then we can put it all together. It will be fine, don’t worry. But before we do that, let’s go get a cup of coffee.”

So we go to this little café in Queens and on the way out of the studio this guy walks in.

He’s wearing a tank top t-shirt and pony tail. So he starts talking to the engineer. This guy is a composer-percussionist who had written all the music for the Olympics. He was somebody who knew what he was doing. So I told him the whole story of what was going on and he said “oh let me do it. Let’s do it, come back into the studio.” He took a midi keyboard and programmed it with percussion. He played it like a keyboard. The guy was brilliant. He’s composing, totally relating to what I am doing. We did one run through so he could hear what I was doing and he said “okay.” I said “what do you mean okay?” And he said “let’s do it.” He was ready. There are people in our profession that are brilliant but you know that. What you hear on that recording was done in a single take. He was unbelievable. You can hear him composing. That was a magical experience. Those experiences come from nowhere.

I think people get stopped by their own preconceived notion of what’s supposed to happen. Don’t you think?

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BW: What they don’t teach you in school is to how to be self-sufficient- how to be ready… to be employable on your own. I think everyone expects to have a job and a salary when they are done with school.

BL: It’s what I call self-entrepreneurial. My whole career has been that way, even before I began playing oboe.

When I was eight or nine together with another guy who got me involved in stamp collecting, we started a company selling stamps. Check it out. Eight years old. We advertised in major magazines and journals. We were eight and nine years old! In one year we turned a profit. It was very early in my own DNA that I think that way. First of all don’t say NO to me. The worst thing that turns my stomach is when someone says to me, we don’t do it that way. Then you have an enemy and I am going to show you the way. I love being creative, being interesting and that sort of stuff. To me that’s so much more fun than getting a job in the army. In some sense I feel the need for security.

Again though, I am very lucky. I have a teaching position with tenure. So let’s be honest, where am I coming from with this discussion. Right! But I can tell you honestly, when I got involved with this I had no idea what that meant. I had no idea what tenure meant. I had no idea what benefits meant. I just did what I thought was the right thing to do. I think I am lucky.

Do you know what I don’t like about the term luck? It implies that people don’t have it and that whatever happens that they are not lucky. That seems unfair to me. What is it that we call luck?

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I can’t tell you how many things that didn’t come through, how many disappointments I had. I’ve gone to bed crying over things I wished I should have had.

BW: So when you where in Chicago and you played in the Lyric Opera, obviously from your teachers perspective and others, you were supposed to get a job in a symphony.

BL: So what happened?

BW: Well I read a newspaper article that said you chose to turn down offers with

Baltimore, Indianapolis and the Houston Symphony.

BL: Right.

BW: Why didn’t you take them?

BL: Well, it’s complicated. I want to give you a totally honest answer. The Baltimore job frankly collapsed. I probably would have taken it had the negotiation went to its final stages. But they said they wanted me and could we discuss further. In the discussing further, the oboe player who had the job at the time decided he wasn’t going to quit. So it wasn’t just my turning it down. I always had a notion that I didn’t want to be outside a major cultural center. Houston was offered to me! It probably wasn’t mentioned in that article. Houston was Stokowski’s orchestra. I played with Stoki for three years. I played English horn for three years and when he went to Houston he discussed with me moving to Houston to be his oboist.

BW: Was that with CBS?

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BL: No Stokowski started an orchestra called the American Symphony Orchestra. He was a fascinating creature if ever lived one. His name was actually Leo Stokes. He was an organist from London. He had dreams and ambitions and he made himself conductor of the Philadelphia Symphony Orchestra. From Leo Stokes organist in London he became Leopold Stokowski. He was a great artist and a wonderful musician. He was kind of a mystical creature. He understood the drama and magic of music. He had flaws in his musicianship you could drive a truck through. He had no sense of rhythm.

He didn’t understand an eighth note from a quarter note from a sixteenth. Amazing!

No sense of pitch. NONE!

I‘ll never forget; we were doing a children’s concert at Carnegie Hall and he did this demonstration. He had the string section play a chord and then the winds. By the time he got to the brass section… …Brass players are clowns they have their very own psychology. They passed the word so that when he had them demonstrate a chord they would play an open fifth with no third. They left the third out. Well this was in Carnegie

Hall, it sounded like the biggest car horn you ever heard in your life. He knew something was wrong. That much I will give him credit for. And he said, I’ll never forget it, “The middle note.” He couldn’t sing it. He couldn’t find the third. And Jose Serebrier, his assistant, sang it to him quietly. The brass section finally played it and he said thank you. But the guy was unbelievable. He was a magician. Yeah he was flawed but so am

I. So are you. He had some incredibly magical qualities. He had so many funny stories.

Once he got into a cab and the driver said “hey are you that conductor.” “ Yes.” “I get

98 musicians in here all the time and they say he doesn’t know shit about music.” Ha

Ha!!!!! Some people think they know everything.

I quit his orchestra. Did you know that?

BW: Is that why you didn’t go to Houston.

BL: Only partially.

It was mainly because I played English horn for him and he wanted me to play really loud all of the time. I couldn’t stand having to play really loud all of the time. Bloom played English horn for him in the Philadelphia Orchestra when he was young. It was like 1920. When I was studying with Bloom one time, I told him that Stoki was driving me crazy. I’m honking away in there. He said he wanted me to do the same thing all of the time when I played with him in Philadelphia. It was just loud all of the time. So finally, after about three years I was doing enough free lance work and partially because

I was playing in the American Symphony Orchestra, people knew who I was. So I had enough of a reputation that I thought, I can’t do it. It’s driving me crazy. So I still remember it. It was a concert on a Sunday afternoon and Stoki had me honking away on a solo. I decided I’m just going to play really pretty. I’m going to do what I want. So I played really beautifully and he’s going (play louder) with his hands. After the concert I felt guilty and I decided this is really ridiculous. It’s his orchestra and he’s a very important conductor. I thought I don’t have a right to do this so I knocked on his dressing room door and I said, “Maestro I need to speak with you. I feel really bad. I did something very bad. You wanted something and I didn’t give it. I feel really bad. I think 99

I should resign from the orchestra and you should get what you want. You should get a player who will do what you want.” And he said “Oh no, no, no, I can teach you what I want you to do.” And I said, “Maestro I don’t think you quite understand what I am saying, because I know what you want and I know how to do it. But I don’t enjoy doing that. I don’t want to play that way. I figure frankly if the composer wants what you are asking for he would have scored it for trombone.” So he said, “Young man I think we should part ways.” Is that sweet?

BW: And he still wanted you to go to Houston?

BL: What’s really interesting? Let me give you the real end of the story. A year later I got called by Lori Glickman (that contractor I talked to you about with Lenny Arner and everyone else who used to do all the big orchestra stuff in New York). You are going to play English horn and oboe and it’s a record date at Columbia Studios. We are doing

Bach transcriptions. And I said wait a minute Bach transcriptions?

BW: Stokowski, right?

BL: And I said, “Who’s the conductor?” Of course he said Leopold Stokowski. I said,

“Lori wait- a- minute. I have to tell you what happened. I played with him for three years and I had this altercation with him. And Lori said, “That’s not a problem. Stoki doesn’t remember anyone who is not important to him. Obviously you’re not important to him. You dismissed him… he dismissed you. You come play the session.” And I said,

“Lori, I will do it but I got to call someone and make sure they are available in case he throws me out.” So I go to the session and he looks at me like out of a piece of glass, 100 like he has no idea who I am. I didn’t exist. Lori was totally right. And during the session he kept complimenting me on how I was playing, and he put my name on the album. Is that fun? Life is a bizarre experience. Is it not?

BW: So obviously you knew that you couldn’t work with him.

BL: You know sometimes I am really stupid, because I do what I have to do and I have no control.

BW: But it worked out for you in the end.

BL: Stoki was a magical creature. He signed a ten year recording contract when he was

92 years old.

He put his whole career together in the most bizarre way imaginable. He believed in himself so much. He created the Philadelphia Orchestra. He created what we call the

American sound. Do you want me to explain it to you?

BW: Yes. Please explain.

BL: I think the American sound is this homogenous sound like the way the Philadelphia

Orchestra sounds. Like an organ. When the Philadelphia Orchestra plays, it’s voiced like an organ. He was an organist. He got them to play like that. They had this warm integrated sound.

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Interview Two with Humbert Lucarelli, November 14, 2010

This interview begins with Mr. Lucarelli discussing John Corigliano’s oboe concerto.

BL: I got him an oboe and I gave him oboe lessons. So he could deal with it you know...and it was important. That’s the kind of integrity that John has.

BW: In the preface of the last movement, he wrote that he had been to Morocco?

BL: Oh, yes. He had just been to Morocco and the instrument was a Rheita. And he wrote this sort of bizarre Moroccan dance. The funny part of that is in the middle of the movement. Do you remember the middle of that movement? Right in the middle of the movement the music just stops and there is a beautiful oboe solo. I thought, I’m this guy playing a concerto with the orchestra. The orchestra oboe player never really gets a chance to play and it’s not fair. So why don’t you write a beautiful oboe solo for the principal oboe player of the orchestra. So he wrote that thing while I am playing this really raucous thing. The first oboe comes in playing this beautiful line and it’s trying to get me to play beautifully instead of raucous and then I join that player. If you listen very carefully, there is an integration of the pretty playing from the orchestra with the kind of raucous playing that I am doing. Then it sort of blends into a beautiful duet and suddenly, I turn it into raucous and the orchestral oboe player starts playing raucous with me. The part of it that I love is that I have gotten reviews where the critic has said,

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“Isn’t it strange our orchestra players sound so much more beautiful than Mr.

Lucarelli?” HA! HA! He was totally missing the point of the exchange. Isn’t that fun? I don’t care about that… when people miss the point. The critic didn’t get it.

BW: So you gave John Corigliano oboe lessons? A lot of ideas probably came from that, right?

BL: Oh, yes! There is one thing in particular. I could show you the oboe part if you want, it’s in the basement. He wrote something in the oboe part that was so unnecessarily ridiculous, awkward, that it wasn’t reasonable. So I called him and I said, “John, this measure is so bizarre, do you need to have those notes in that sequence?” He said, “No, not really.” So I said, “What’s important in that measure? What notes do you want?

And can I re-sequence the whole thing?” And he said, “Yeah, go ahead.” So I rewrote that little measure to make it playable for an oboe player. That’s the kind of interchange between the composer and performer that I think is really very important.

BW: So even if he did start taking lessons on the oboe, he wouldn’t have known about the multiphonics on the oboe?

BL: No. that I showed him. We decided on multiphonics; what I feel about multiphonics, it’s my head about multiphonics. I don’t think that you can write them down, notate them. It depends on the reed, the instrument a lot of things. I don’t think you can notate them well.

BW: I noticed in the score that there is a high, medium, and a low.

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BL: Right, that’s what it is. I told John look, “This I know you can get from every oboe player: a high, a medium, and a low. Let’s do that. Let’s not try to do tonal stuff.”

BW: Was that new back then?

BL: It was sort of new. It was en vogue, multiphonics. Music runs in fashion. So multiphonics were kind of in fashion. I don’t personally think that they are a legitimate resource in music.

A friend of mine came to hear me play the Berio Sequenza which has multiphonics in it.

I did the New York premiere of that.

BW: Did you work on it with Berio?

BL: Yes! We worked together, we fought over it even.

So she comes to hear me play after I did about fifty performances of it. Do you know

Ornette Coleman a jazz player? He was a wonderful player he said to me after I played it “you made that thing sound like Bach.”

So she comes to me (my friend) and I said, “So what do you think of this piece?” And she said, “Um, well, the fact that the oboe can belch and fart is not very interesting.” Do you love that?

BW: A lot of practice to hear that.

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BL: It is what it is. I know the piece really well and I have heard really good performances of it. Some people have really dedicated themselves to it and have nailed it.

I did a pretty good job of it. I don’t think I nailed it to the wall. I have a student that plays it brilliantly. I heard Klein do it from memory.

BW: You did about fifty performances of it?

BL: I did about fifty performances of it and you know, it got to the point where it was somewhat normal for me to play it.

BW: What does it do to your ability to play Bach the next day?

BL: It’s all about bringing logic to the piece. Making the piece sound logical and you can do that with anything.

BW: So when you did the American premiere of the Berio Sequenza, where did you do that?

BL: It was at Tully Hall. It was in a program that I did. There was a period when I was going to make a statement about myself…that I was going to be pursuing a solo career.

My first concert at Tully Hall was an accident. It was the first solo recital ever done at

Tully Hall. The Hall had just opened.

BW: Where is Tully Hall?

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BL: It’s part of Lincoln Center. It’s in the Juilliard building. It’s the recital hall of Lincoln

Center. It seats about 1200.

BW: You did the three recitals there?

BL: The first one I did there was a complete accident; you’ll love it.

I was playing with the Royal Ballet. I was walking down the street with this friend of mine who was the concert master of the Royal Ballet. Guy Lumia was his name. He had just signed a contract with Saul Hurok. Saul Hurok was the most important Impresario in the Unites States music business. He created careers... hands down. So he had just signed with Hurok. We were just walking out of rehearsal and he says to me, “I really screwed up. I booked the hall and got the right to do the first recital in the hall before

Lincoln Center’s opening. I can’t do it, because I just signed a contract with Saul Hurok, the most important Impresario in the United States. He does not want me to play a New

York recital until I have gone on the road and gotten reviews. Then when I get back he will present me with all of these reviews and no one will be able to say I am nobody.”

Hurok was that kind of manipulator. “I am going to lose the money that I paid for the hall.” So I said to Guy, “I will do it. I will take the hall.” It was a very naïve… very stupid thing to say. I took it and played a recital in the hall and it got a wonderful review. So I got to thinking, maybe I should do more of this.

BW: What did you play on that recital?

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BL: I don’t remember. We would have to look at the program. Downstairs is full of programs.

So I said I’d do it. It may have been the concert I did the Loeffler with Tom Hrynkiw,

Schumann Romances. It was a real traditional recital.

BW: Why haven’t you recorded the Schumann Romances?

BL: I never recorded them, I wish I had. If I came out of retirement, which I doubt will ever happen. I would like to do an all Schumann record. There are performances that I have done that might be recorded. I am not embarrassed by any of them. There are always some things that you wish were better. Like, I wish this interval was better, things like that with performance recordings.

The trouble with commercial recordings is…..well… There is this very famous string quartet that I know that did a recording that won an Emmy. There are 532 edits in that

CD. It turns it into some kind of manikin. It’s so artificial.

BW: So when I was a kid my mother gave me an album called The Sensual Sound of the

Soulful Oboe. I just fell in love with it. I thought it was very nice, very beautiful music.

BL: Do you want to know the story of how that album happened?

BW: Of course!

BL: I had a really good friend who was a secretary for a guy who was a record producer.

He was a significant figure. He was an important producer. He held a lot of different

107 record companies. He had one company and I thought I would love to record the

Mozart Oboe Quartet. So my friend asked me if I wanted to meet him. His name was

Joey, and I said “sure.” So I met with him and he asked me what I wanted to do. I told him this is what I want to do. You have this one label, maybe I could do the Mozart

Quartet and…..and he said, “interesting. Let me get back to you, I’ll call you.” So he calls me back maybe two or three weeks later. “I have an idea for you… a project that I want you to do. I want to do a record of well known classical melodies arranged with string quartet and guitar. Do you think you can do it?” Well I was doing a lot of record dates at the time. I was doing commercials. Well I can do that, but it’s not the Mozart

Oboe Quartet. So I go into his studio he had an arranger arrange all of the music. If you recall the album is all classical tunes. They’re arranged for string quartet and guitar. It was fun. It was like a record date. I was wearing earphones and overdubbing and stuff like that.

I would love for you to hear something I recorded it has something like ten overdubs something like that.

So I did the recording. It was fun and the engineer was good. Two or three months later the editing is all done and he was going to put it on the market. He called me in and said, “We’re ready to go.” He showed me the art work for the album with the oboe with the rose coming out of it. It was called The Sensual Sound of the Soulful Oboe, and I said, “Joe I can’t do that. I’m into Mozart! I’m a classical musician! You can’t put my name on an album that says ‘The Sensual Sound of the Soulful Oboe’.” He said, “Fine, no

108 problem. Let’s make up a name like Antonio Antonini oboe player from Venice. Well make it up.”

He was so un-hung-up. He could care less. He just wanted to make money. So we made up this name and we made up a bio…and that was going to be the album...this fantasy oboe player. So I leave his office and I called a friend of mine who was Roger

Englander. Roger was Leonard Bernstein’s television producer. He was a friend of mine.

So obviously he was in the profession, he was in the business. So I told him, “This guy wants to do this thing called The Sensual Sound of the Soulful Oboe and they put my name on it and then I had them take it off.” Roger said to me, “You’re stupid. Get your name on that album.” So I called Joe the next day. And he says, “I’m glad you called. I was just about to call the printers and tell them to go to press. So we’ll change it and put your name back on it.”

So they put my name back on the album. Since then everyone has been so jealous that I sold an album that is probably the biggest selling oboe record in history. It sold over fifty thousand copies. For an oboe record that is just outrageous.

BW: Who has come closest?

BL: I think Holliger has sold a lot of albums. But for one album I’m not sure.

BL: So you were telling me how that album affected you. Let me tell you something. I am humbled by the whole concept. There was this family that escaped from Russia and the only CD they took with them was The Sensual Sound of the Soulful Oboe. They

109 wrote me a letter about it. I’ve gotten letters from oncologists who have used it with their patients going through chemotherapy. That’s a humbling kind of thing. I didn’t know what I was doing when I did it. I just did it. A lot of things in life are like that.

BW: So you’ve created this different career for yourself. Have you tried to help your students do the same?

BL: Oh yeah! In the end anything you can do to stay alive is cool. Whether you play second oboe in Kansas City, principal in Berlin, or playing at the pub, it doesn’t matter.

And if you don’t get that, it doesn’t mean it’s the end of your life.

BW: When you talk to your students do you try to feel out what they are trying to do?

BL: A lot of them have a predetermined notion of what it means to be successful.

That’s a problem.

BW: Like getting an orchestra job. Where does that idea come from?

BL: Does it come from parents that want their kids to get a job?

BW: Do you talk to parents of students?

BL: I do. Usually they ask if their child is going to be able to make a living doing this.

I always tell them there is no way I can guarantee they are going to get a job and make forty or fifty thousand dollars a year and pay their mortgage or whatever. But I can tell you that through my relationship with this instrument I have learned more about myself as a human being and as a person than I could have learned through anything other

110 than maybe some sort of deep therapy. I think this is so much nicer. Playing Bach,

Mozart and Beethoven and struggling with that is much nicer.

BW: You’ve created opportunities for your students, am I right?

BL: I hope to God. Why yes! I tell all of them and you as well. I would love for you to stand on my shoulders and go further. I’m like every father. I have all the same ambivalent feelings about that because my father…. My father was no different he wanted me to go further than he did. Every father does. But on the other hand you resent it when they do because…because you say why didn’t I have the same chances that they had? That’s a really genuine reaction. It’s an honest reaction. My father wanted me to go further than he did but he was pissed off when I did.

BW: The band Musemorphoses, what was that all about?

BL: Oh you remember that. It was a very successful group on some levels. We got an incredible review from a concert we did at Carnegie Hall. But it never really took off.

We almost had a record contract. If that had happened it would have taken off. When record companies sign you, they want you to be successful so they can sell records.

They invest. We came within a hairsbreadth of getting a contract.

It’s a weird story.

A big record company called us and wanted to meet with us. It was like a big board meeting. Twenty people sitting around a table like something out of a B movie. So they

111 wanted us to play some tapes of our stuff and it was going really well. Then we played one cut.

The group played all kinds of music from Heavy Metal to Renaissance, Jazz, Rock and

Roll, Classical; we even did the Poulenc Sonata. That was the whole point of the group.

Two hundred years of Western Music.

We got to the Jazz portion, and it was a piece by a very well known Jazz bass player. The piece was called Sarabande… and we put that on the machine… and one guy stood up, the vice president of marketing …Are you guys coming on to me!...I don’t need any part of this. I’m leaving.” We lost the contract. Isn’t that wild? Getting ready to sign a million dollar contract and I don’t know what happened, was it a set up? I don’t know.

So the group died.

The only thing that keeps groups together is you are making money; you are getting prestige out of it, or musical satisfaction from it. We did have some good paying dates.

But in the end, you can’t pay your mortgage with prestige and nice rehearsals. So in the end… goodbye! Those are things that keep a group alive. It can be just one of the three. A group can last awhile on prestige or musical merit. But without the money it will die.

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Interview Three with Humbert Lucarelli, November 15, 2010

This interview begins with me presenting Lucarelli with a review of one of his early recitals in New York.

Lucarelli reading his review ….

BL: Martin Katz was the pianist.

Do you know who Martin Katz is?

BW: No.

BL: Have you heard of Marylyn Horne.

BW: Yes. I know who she is.

BL: He became her pianist. And he started teaching at Curtis after that.

Marty was a wonderful guy and a great pianist.

Howard Howard the French horn player (in the review) was the principal of the Met for thirty years. One of my last concerts I played was with Howard.

That’s a nice review isn’t it?

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BW: Yes.

BL: It still does strike me that I did what I did. I just did it. There was no kind of big plan.

BW: You grew up in Chicago. You must have done some things in high school?

BL: Oh yes, I was a big shot in high school. When I was seventeen I conducted the orchestra and played principal oboe all the way through high school.

BW: Who did you study oboe with first?

BL: In high school I studied with Bob Mayer.

BW: Robert Mayer?

BL: He was the English horn player in the Chicago Symphony. He was one of those players that inspired a lot of young players. A little like Joe Kreines.

BW: Yes.

BL: I went to a high school that had a band director who was one of those magical people who was able to out of spit and bubble gum and Scotch-tape put together a great band program. He was able to talk Chicago Symphony players to come and teach for free. There are some inspired people in this world. His name was Louis Blaha. He was Czech. See Chicago was very Czech, Polish.

BW: So Robert Mayer was your first teacher. Then you went to the University of Illinois for one year and then left to go to Chicago to study at Roosevelt College.

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BL: Roosevelt University was …..After WWII a lot of universities were started because they (the government) promised all the guys that served in the war that if they came back they would get a college education. And so, all these colleges started after the war.

You know the University of Hartford was started as part of that movement. They were called Land Grant Colleges. Usually those colleges were put together by putting a bunch of different educational institutions smashed together to make a university.

So Roosevelt was Chicago Musical College which is what it was. Now they later dropped the name and now call it the Chicago College of the Performing Arts. But Roosevelt is the University. I am very good friends with the president of the University. Chuck

Middleton is his name and he is a fabulous human being. The dean of the music school at Roosevelt University was the manager of the Chicago Symphony.

BL: You heard me play today. I can still play pretty well.

BW: Most definitely.

BL: I can still play, but trust me I can’t walk on the stage and do that for an hour or so anymore. I know better. I am glad to be able to do what I can and show a student what’s possible. But I have no illusions about what I can and can’t do. It’s physical. It is physical! It’s stupid and you have to submit to it.

I don’t feel older. That part of the body goes. A ballet dancer, an opera singer, or a baseball player… Most baseball players after forty don’t get to play. One of the best

115 things about being a musician is that you get to do it until about seventy. You don’t have to feel bad that I’m not playing. I’m relieved, I suffered long enough.

BW: So when you were at Roosevelt you started subbing with the Chicago Symphony.

BL: Yes, my last semester I started subbing with the Chicago Symphony. I must have been like nineteen or something.

BW: Then where did you start playing?

BL: In Orlando with the Florida Symphony Orchestra. The conductor was Henry Mazer who later became the assistant to Fritz Reiner in Chicago.

BW: So when did you start doing the Lyric Opera?

BL: I was doing Lyric Opera, Florida Symphony and Grant Park at the same time.

I had a full orchestra season. The Lyric Opera was usually like September, October, and

November. We stopped for Christmas holidays…. Right after Christmas I would go to

Florida. I would arrive in late January, February, March, April and Florida ends at the end of April right. I would have a month or two off and I would start Grant Park in Chicago.

So I had essentially a full orchestra season.

BL: So I was making in 1959… I was earning over fifty thousand dollars a year.

You know what that it is today? That’s like $200,000. I had a huge salary. And I was doing freelance work, record dates, jingles…And after about four years of that I couldn’t stand it anymore. I knew if something didn’t change I was going to die. It was over. I

116 knew I wasn’t ever going to be principal of the Chicago Symphony. Ray Still was there and he had just come. I had to get out. And I thought, I didn’t want to go to Houston.

Baltimore was okay. It was kind of east coastish and there was Indianapolis. They offered me the Indianapolis job. I had already signed a contract with Florida. I went to the Florida Symphony to see if they would let me out of my contract so I could take the

Indianapolis job and they said no. They wouldn’t let me go. They insisted that I stay and honor my contract. And Ray Still was so pissed off. He wanted me to move to

Indianapolis and I just couldn’t do it. I said “Ray this is the beginning of my career and I don’t want to start it by breaking a contract and there is something about breaking a contract that doesn’t feel honest to me.” And he was so pissed off at me because I wouldn’t break that contract. I gave up Indianapolis and I played in Florida. And the guy that got the Indianapolis job was a Gomberg student and it just didn’t pan out for him.

And I’m not sure if it would of panned out for me. You never know what’s going to happen in life. So I think in the end I made the right decision. And when I moved to

New York….I did Florida one more year… stuff picked up in New York …

BL: My first year in New York I earned three hundred dollars. I went from sixty thousand to three hundred dollars in one year.

BW: That must have been awful scary?

BL: There were times, weeks when I would only eat Kraft Macaroni and Cheese which you could get for 10 cents a box. I would buy that and that was my dinner. If I wanted

117 to eat meat or anything I would invite myself over to friend’s house to eat. Isn’t that fun!

BW: So what made you decide to go to New York?

BL: What else was I going to do? Chicago was out of the question, because Ray was there. Philadelphia was totally tapped. So I just went to New York. I knew a few people. There were touring companies that came through Chicago and I met a guy from the Met that I played with. I met Bloom and I always wanted to study with him. So I went to New York and studied with Bloom.

It seemed like a logical thing to do. Does it seem wrong?

BW: Not at all.

BL: I didn’t want to go to Boston. New York was like the Mecca you know. And fortunately I caught it at the right time. It was just at the end of the big freelance scene.

When I finally broke in, in New York, I was playing a lot of second oboe to Lenny Arner.

So I was playing three or four concerts a week with rehearsals and stuff. The quintet I played in with Dale Clevenger, I told you about that.

BW: So you said your last review was really good no?

BL: It was great! You know the Bach? You know that review?

BW: Which one?

BL: You know Bach by Bert?

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BW: Yes. The Gramophone review?

BL: Yes, the Gramophone review compared me to Casals. Can you ask for anything more?

BW: No. That’s cool.

BL: I’ve been lucky. I have made smart choices, like to stop before it was over, like going to New York.

BW: So when you went to New York did you study with Bloom right away?

BL: Pretty much. Within about six months…By the time I got my feet on the ground. In fact I still remember my first lesson with him… I told him “I know I’m a good oboe player.” I was a pretty cocky kid. “But what I need to know is can I become really special like you.” I remember I would go to his place with an empty gallon for water. I couldn’t drink the water in New York City and I couldn’t afford to buy bottled water. I’d ask him if I could fill my gallon at his house out in Long Island. He had wonderful well water. He charged me ten dollars for my first lesson. After that he didn’t take any money from me for lessons. That was my answer if I could be special. I thought he wouldn’t bother with me if I wasn’t going to be special. So for six years of lessons he didn’t take any money from me.

BW: Wow!

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BL: And that’s why I do things now for everybody. It’s my payback. I’m paying back for what Bloom gave me.

BW: I noticed when I studied with you and listening to lessons the last couple of days that you refer to him a lot.

BL: And Ray Still also.

I got a wonderful review….well someone was actually trying to criticize my playing. And he said, “the trouble with Bert Lucarelli is that he is somewhere between Robert Bloom and Ray Still.” And I thought thank you. For me I can’t imagine anything nicer than that.

BW: That’s a cool review to have.

BL: I think it was a record review or something.

BW: So after playing a while in symphonies and freelancing…

BL: When I arrived in New York In 1961 I was twenty-six or something and I did that for about ten years. I was in my mid-thirties and that’s when I started feeling like I wanted to do something else.

I didn’t get in to any major orchestra. Philly had de Lancie. Boston had Gomberg, and

Harold Gomberg resigned and Ronnie took over in New York. Do you know Ronnie

Roseman?

BW: Yes of Course I know that name.

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BL: He played in the Philharmonic for two or three years. Then Joe Robinson got the job.

Only one time we had a problem you know that album we did with three oboes?

BW: Yes, I know the album.

BL: I was involved in sort of helping produce that album. See I brought it together. This is some of the entrepreneurial things that I did. I knew the guy who was the head of

MCA records. He was a producer. His name was Thomas Shepherd. And he produced the Corigliano Concerto recording for RCA. So I knew him. Well he got the job at MCA.

He left RCA and went to MCA a big entertainment company. He was looking for things to do. So here is a guy who got a new job. You got to know that he was looking for stuff to do to make an impression. So I went to him with this idea. How about we do something with three oboes like the three tenors? And he was an Oberlin graduate so he thought Alex Klein, and we thought Joe Robinson with the Philharmonic. So the three of us got together and did this album. The album died immediately because the company got rid of their classical division. I think it only lasted six months or so.

So I put my name at the top, Humbert Lucarelli as a joke because I always used Bert. I used Humbert as sort of a pretentious silly joke and I put Joe Robinson. So he called me and said, “so you’re Humbert and I’m Joe. I should be Joseph.” I was joking, making fun of myself because I always used Bert.”

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BL: Years ago I met a very important advertising person. At the age of twenty-eight he was voted advertising man of the year internationally. He invented the phrase “Put a tiger in your tank.” That was his concoction.

We were friends. He did my first brochure for my first concert in New York. And so we discussed should my name be Bert, Humbert, Lucarelli, what should it be? He got me to talk about the whole oboe business. So I started to name the players; Bob Bloom, Marc

Lifschey, all these shortened names. Nobody used their full names. And he said, “Like baseball players. Reggie Jackson. It’s not Reginald. So oboe players are like that so your name has to be Bert. You can’t be Humbert.” So he was the one who established my using the name Bert all during the early part of my career. Later, I think that album, the one with the three oboes, is the first one I used Humbert. I’m growing up now I can use

Humbert.

This came from a review Harold Schonberg was a critic for The New York Times. He wrote a review of Bernstein when he did a concert with Glenn Gould. You know Glenn

Gould did the Brahms concerto with the Philharmonic at half tempo. Do you know about this?

BW: No

BL: So Gould comes out and plays (Singing parts in half tempo)

BL: So Bernstein comes out before the concert and says to the audience that “we are going to do a very unusual performance tonight of the Brahms piano concerto with Mr.

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Gould. I just want everyone to know that this is not a performance that I agree with. I don’t sanction this. It’s not what I would do. But Mr. Gould is the soloist and these are his wishes.” The critic wrote, “When will Lenny become Leonard?” In other words if your an adult you don’t do that. You either encourage Gould to play the right tempo or you don’t conduct the concerto or send the sub in. That was what the whole review was about. That Bernstein didn’t stand up to his responsibility as a music director. Part of my changing from Bert to Humbert was at sometime you have to grow up and say I’m

Humbert. This has made a recent problem for me in that I-tunes list some of my recordings under Bert and some under Humbert. These are the psychological games we play in our heads about who we are and what we are.

When I first started doing solo work it was a real problem for me. I felt like I had left the family. I left the orchestra. It was my family I had to deal with that. I think a lot of orchestra players like to play a concerto if they can and I think it’s nice if they do. But I don’t think it has anything to do with the real issue of playing a concerto. To play concertos is very different psychologically than playing in the orchestra. I think it’s very possible for a really amazing player in the orchestra not to be able to play a concerto well. It’s not what they are trained to do. They can carve an eight bar solo like nobody.

But you give them a twenty-four minute concerto to play and they have no idea what to do. And that’s part of the sadness in the whole scheme of things. It’s probably why many musicians don’t think the Strauss Concerto is a very good piece, because it’s mainly played by orchestra players. You know the Mozart concerto very often sounds like a Ferling etude. It’s easy to play a great piece. That’s why every youth orchestra 123 plays the Brahms 1st Symphony. You can’t kill that piece. Take Beethoven’s 2nd symphony, a youth orchestra can’t play that piece. Beethoven 4th it takes a great orchestra to make that work. Beethoven 5th is easy to bring off, it’s written in that way.

Tchaikovsky’s 5th, those pieces play themselves. You don’t even have to be there. The

Brahms first is a classic for that.

BW: When was your first solo engagement in New York?

BL: The first concerto I played I told you, was the Martinů with B Brown and the NEP.

BW: Was it gradual?

BL: Yes I did a lot of chamber music.

BW: So your first solo recital was the one at Lincoln center at Tully hall? The first of three?

BL: No, that was an independent one, the one after that. It went so well that I decided I was going to let everyone know that I was a soloist so I went and scheduled three recitals. In those days you could get Tully Hall very cheap. I could rent Tully Hall for about six hundred dollars. And so I did these three recitals. One was called the

Romantic Oboe. One was all American premieres of contemporary music. That’s when I did the Berio Sequenza on that concert. It was all premieres just about. The third concert was the Baroque Oboe. I did five concertos in one evening with a string orchestra. I really had no idea of the scope of what I was doing.

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What made it interesting, why critics came, was I didn’t do just five concertos. I did five concertos from five different styles of baroque music. I did Italian, English, German,

French, and 20th century baroque. The 20th century baroque was a Cimarosa. And then

I did a Handel concerto that was ornamented in English style. I studied with somebody who new English ornamentation. And I did Italian Baroque. I did a Vivaldi Concerto and I did a Telemann.

I did something interesting it wasn’t just five concertos. Each one was ornamented in a different way.

BW: You had to hire an orchestra for all that?

BL: Yes, it was just a double string quartet. Good players. I borrowed money to hire the orchestra from friends. I had no trouble because it was a good idea. You know that’s something. I never had trouble raising money for a good idea. If you come up with an interesting idea, people will make it happen for you. And that’s why I always got press because I did things that were interesting.

Once I asked The New York Times why they always…

You know the way The New York Times works is they look at all the concerts in the week. They have a meeting once a week, all the critics. They decide what they are going to review. And so I asked one of the critics “why do you always come to my concerts.” And he said, “You are always doing something weird or something

125 interesting.” I was just doing a recital. To do something with an idea attached to it.

Today they call it thematic programming. Just have an interesting idea.

Then the Corigliano Concerto came along and that really catapulted me and John. And that was great he really wrote a good piece.

BW: So you had the Corigliano, Baksa, and …

BL: Moravec, recently? He won a Pulitzer Prize for composition.

BL: There are a lot of things I could never begin to remember.

BL: Francis Thorn wrote a piece for me he was a good composer.

BL: Takemitsu he had written a piece for harpsichord and oboe for Holliger and his wife.

The story was that Takemitsu was doing a New York Premiere of the work and asked that I play it. Because I was known as doing contemporary music, through Holliger I think. So I played it. And it had some ridiculous high stuff like high c-sharp, way up there.

BW: So the Berio, did you work on it with him?

BL: Yes I studied it with him and he was very nice to me. But later on we had a fight about it. And so I canceled a performance of it until… He wanted me to play it from memory. I wasn’t very interested in doing it from memory. People do play it by memory. I wasn’t going to spend that kind of time on it. I wouldn’t say it’s a good or bad piece.

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BW: What about the composer here at Hartt, Gryc?

BL: Oh, yes. Steven Gryc has a gift for writing for wind instruments. He wrote the oboe quintet, a beautiful piece. The three unaccompanied pieces and he wrote something for flute, oboe, and harpsichord. He is very gifted wind composer, thoughtful. He writes in forms, themes, and ideas.

BW: The first recording you did was the quintet?

BL: Yes, the Lark quintet. I did the Nielson opus #2, Romance, and Humoresque. I think that was the first recording I did and then after that I did the Telemann. The Partitas.

BW: What about the Schickele?

BL: Oh, yes. Schickele, he wrote a piece for a trio I was in. I think it was flute, oboe, and harpsichord. Do you know who he is?

BW: PDQ Bach.

BL: Right, but he was also a serious composer on the side. It was a very good trio. I like

Peter. He was a very good writer.

BW: Did you premiere that work?

BL: Oh, yes. It was written for us.

BW: Was it a commission?

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BL: I don’t remember. I’m sure I have a copy of it somewhere in the basement. He wrote another piece for oboe and piano. It was very pretty. I asked him if I could do it with harpsichord and he said that was okay.

BW: Most of this time you were studying with Bloom right? During this time you did some concerts with the Bach Aria Group?

BL: Yes, I played second oboe to Bloom in the Bach Aria Group for like ten years. All the time this was going on. Even when I played in the rock band I was playing in the Bach

Aria Group.

The Bach Aria group did three big concerts a year in New York. At first they were done at Town Hall. You know where that is? 43rd between 5th and 6th …. It was a nice hall which sat 1,200. Decent acoustics… It was used as a concert hall for recitals. Then when

Lincoln Center came, it fell out of fashion. Not exactly the neighborhood in which we do classical concerts now. I did a lot of concerts there. Then when Tully Hall was built the

Bach Aria group moved there. I have a record playing of Bloom in the Bach Aria Group.

BW: Is that the one hanging on your wall?

BL: Is it on the wall.

BW: Yes. So were you playing second on that?

BL: Yes, and that’s when Bloom had his heart attack. He called me and I went on tour for him. He called, it was very dramatic. He called me and said, “I have to go on tour with the Bach Aria group can you do it for me.” And I said yes. I canceled everything 128 and I went on tour. It was a one month tour, fourteen concerts or something. We started in Toronto and Oscar Shumsky was the violinist and he was good friends with

Glen Gould. Glen Gould came to the concert and I still remember… I played the opening aria the first piece on the program with Maureen Forrester. And after the concert Gould came back stage and introduced himself to me and he said to me, “I got to tell you if I played oboe I would want to play the way you play.” And I said “that’s probably because when I was in high school I bought your record of the Goldberg Variations and I listened to it every day for four years. I am playing like you. That’s all I’m doing. I’m just copying you.”

BW: Where you friends with Beverly Sills?

BL: Yes, I knew her. We would talk and carry on.

BW: Did you ever perform with her?

BL: No, I never did anything with her but I got involved with a lot of singers. And they were very important to me in terms of imaging myself as a soloist. Because, when I started doing this, there was no American (oboe recitalist) playing, so I couldn’t copy it.

Bloom was the closest thing to it.

BW: What about Mitch Miller?

BL: I love Mitch. I got to know him a bit. He was really the first soloist. When we got to know each other a little bit, I hired him to conduct the Mozart Oboe Concerto for a

129 competition that I ran. I asked him to be a judge and a conductor of the orchestra. He gave me recordings of all his performances, of concertos and things autographed.

BW: Was he a good player?

BL: I thought he was a wonderful player. But others looked down their noses at him because he was different, not a Tabuteau student. He was not conservative enough for them, so they would always put him down. Which I thought was always partially some jealousy.

BW: He was friends with a lot of people. Like Sinatra.

BL: He became director of Artists and Repertoire for Columbia Records. He as such helped create Frank Sinatra’s career and Ella Fitzgerald and a bunch of other people.

I maintain that he… I said to him… He had never framed it in the way that I did and why he was so important. It’s like I keep saying to you. I did what did. I just did it, not calculated, nor did he.

What happened was he came along at the right time. When records were moving from

78’s to 33 1/3. 78’s were big platters with like five minutes. Now they have these new

33 1/3 with half an hour. What do you do with it? How do you program it? He began to think of the record as a song cycle. You could do seven or eight songs on a side. So he created the concept album like Lovers on a Saturday Night. He created these albums that had a theme. And only a classical musician could have come up with that idea. I explained that to him. He hadn’t even thought about it.

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BW: So he did the Alec Wilder pieces we were talking about?

BL: He had Alec Wilder write some pieces for Sinatra, and as a thank you Wilder wrote the concerto for Mitch.

BW: What about the unaccompanied.

BL: There was the unaccompanied piece and the sonata. I think the sonata was written for Ronnie Roseman. When I came to New York, Wilder was still alive. But those days I wasn’t interested in contemporary music. I was interested in eating my Kraft Macaroni and Cheese and surviving.

Funny how all these people affect your life.

I must say I was opened to it. I was not scared or shutting them out. I think you have to do that.

BW: Did you learn about recording?

BL: I had for the most part very good engineers to work with, especially for the

Telemann. We recorded in the same studio as Bruno Walter with the Columbia

Symphony. The acoustics were good.

A lot of people try to give me credit for all of my recordings, but some of them were not my ideas. Like The Sensual Sound of the Soulful Oboe was not my idea. I told you that I ran from it at first, until someone told me to get serious.

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One of the most fun recording projects I did was the Debussy one. It came out originally as Delightful Debussy and it didn’t do well. It sold like ten copies or something (ha ha.)

So rather than throw it away, the publisher repackaged it under the title Debussy Music for Oboe and Harp. It had an out of focus ballerina on the front. It sold over 25,000 copies. And then they repackaged it again and called it Debussy by the Sea and put waves in the background and it makes you want to go to the bathroom and pee.

BW: Do the record companies look at if they sell 10,000 copies they make money?

BL: I never did. The Sensual Sound was the first album of its kind that I did. So I got like two cents an album or something. Everybody thought I became a millionaire because of that record.

BW: What is a record company looking to sell?

BL: If you are looking at pop they are looking to sell a quarter of a million on the first shot.

BW: With us it’s different. If a classical company sells three thousand copies it’s a success. I think the market is better today. I’m on I-tunes. It’s world-wide. If I get three thousand hits, that’s pretty good. It’s more than Carnegie Hall. Carnegie Hall is only two thousand seats. If I sell three thousand albums... I think the whole business is confused.

I don’t think they get it. I think it is a much more positive thing.

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