Outstanding Oboe BEST LOVED 8.578178 classical oboe music Outstanding Oboe Best loved classical oboe music 17 Enticing oboe repertoire featuring some of the best-loved concertos, quartets and sonatas Saint-Saëns: Oboe Sonata in D major, string colleagues in that premiere were of Bach, Handel, Mozart, Albinoni and others. Op. 166 – III. Molto allegro drawn from the Elector’s orchestra as Like his compatriot Poulenc, Camille well.Ramm’s lyricism and tonal beauty 1 Johann Sebastian BACH (1685–1750) 9 Allegro non molto 3:32 Concerto for Violin and Oboe, 4:38 10 Larghetto 3:25 Saint-Saëns composed an oboe were spurs to Mozart. In this work he BWV 1060 – I. Allegro 11 Allegro 2:43 sonata toward the very end of his creates a rich tapestry of the subtlest of Christian Hommel • Lisa Stewart chamber interplay. After the perfectly Alessandro MARCELLO (1684–1750) life. It was a time of rapidly changing Cologne Chamber Orchestra musical styles to which Saint-Saëns calibrated Classical first movement, Helmut Müller-Brühl (8.554602) Oboe Concerto in D minor 11:21 Stefan Schilli • Cologne Chamber Orchestra responded with a series of three and before the high spirits of the Tomaso ALBINONI (1671–1751) Helmut Müller-Brühl (8.551077) sonatas. The Oboe Sonata in D major Rondo finale, comes the exquisitely Oboe Concerto in D minor, Op. 9, No. 2 12:58 12 Andante e spiccato 3:28 is marked by its spare, almost austere poised slow movement. Time seems to Anthony Camden • London Virtuosi 13 Adagio 4:08 neo-Classicism, its third movement stand still here, though the movement John Georgiadis (8.550739) 14 Presto 3:42 2 Allegro e non presto 4:30 full of refinement and clarity. is not in itself particularly long. But 15 3 Adagio 5:21 Alessandro BESOZZI (1702–1775) there is such a rapt intensity to the Oboe Concerto No. 1 in C major – 7:53 4 Allegro 3:03 18 Mozart: Oboe Quartet oboe’s aria, and the supporting strings III. Allegretto 5 Wolfgang Amadeus MOZART (1756–1791) Anthony Camden • City of London Sinfonia in F major, K. 370 – II. Adagio provide so consoling and warm a Oboe Concerto in C major, K. 314 – 6:00 Nicholas Ward (8.554772) It was, once again, Friedrich Ramm cushion, that it seems far longer than III. Allegro its mere 37 bars’ length. It is a miracle 16 Domenico CIMAROSA (1749–1801) who – as in the case of the oboe Martin Gabriel • Vienna Mozart Academy concerto – provided the virtuosity of compression, a miracle of beauty. Johannes Wildner (8.550345) arr. Arthur BENJAMIN (1893–1960) Oboe Concerto in C minor – III. Siciliana 3:00 and musicality to premiere Mozart’s 6 Francis POULENC (1899–1963) Anthony Camden • City of London Sinfonia Oboe Quartet. It was written in 19 Rimsky-Korsakov: Oboe Sonata, FP 185 – 5:03 Nicholas Ward (8.553991) 1781 in Munich, where Mozart had Flight of the Bumble-bee I. Élégie: Paisiblement 17 (1835–1921) This famous showpiece comes from the Olivier Doise • Alexandre Tharaud (8.553611) Camille SAINT-SAËNS gone to put the finishing touches Oboe Sonata in D major, Op. 166 – 2:23 to his opera Idomeneo. Ramm had opera The Tale of Tsar Saltan where it 7 George Frideric HANDEL (1685–1759) III. Molto allegro been a prestigious member of the forms a short interlude in the third act Oboe Concerto No. 3 in G minor, 2:03 Charles Hamann HWV 287 – IV. Allegro Stéphane Lemelin (8.570964) Mannheim orchestra which was, in which various orchestral sections Anthony Camden • City of London Sinfonia in the words of one awed visitor, contribute. However it has been 18 Wolfgang Amadeus MOZART Nicholas Ward (8.553430) the English music historian Charles arranged for a variety of instruments, Oboe Quartet in F major, K. 370 – 3:18 8 Robert SCHUMANN (1810–1856) II. Adagio Burney, ‘an army of generals’.Now in which a performer can demonstrate 3 Romanzen, Op. 94 – No. 3, 4:17 Max Artved • Elise Batnes Ramm was in Munich, performing as the considerable virtuosity necessary to Nicht schnell Dimitri Golovanov • Lars Holm Johansen principal oboist in the orchestra of the surmount its dazzlingly fast intricacies. József Kiss • Jeno˝ Jandó (8.550599) (8.557361) Elector of the Palatinate, and it seems Antonio VIVALDI (1678–1741) 19 Nikolay RIMSKY-KORSAKOV overwhelmingly probable that his Jonathan Woolf Oboe Concerto in A minor, RV 461 9:40 (1844–1908) © Naxos Rights (Europe) Ltd Stefan Schilli Flight of the Bumble-bee 1:26 Budapest Failoni Chamber Orchestra Ivan Paisov Pier Giorgio Morandi (8.550860) Natalia Shcherbakova (8.570596) 8.578178 Total Timing: 74:43 2 11 8.578178 was Bach by this Oboe Concerto 16 Cimarosa, arr. Benjamin: Outstanding Oboe in D minor, published in 1717 (and Oboe Concerto in C minor – Best loved classical oboe music over the years sometimes mistakenly III. Siciliana attributed to Alessandro’s brother, Attributions, misattributions, If you’ve ever blown through blades of grass competition. Older instrument makers and their Benedetto) that he transcribed it for arrangements and simple mistakes you will have some idea of the sensation now suddenly old fashioned and crudely made solo harpsichord. The work is suffused have been rife in the history of produced and the sound that emerges – a instruments looked very amateur; the more with harmony and gracefulness, a some of these works, as we have magical buzzing that vibrates on the lips. It’s elegant sounding oboe was now the natural beautiful balance that allows, in the seen, and the same is true for this not at all dissimilar to the theory of playing instrument to be taken into orchestras. central Adagio, the solo oboe to spin one. For many years this work was the oboe, and in fact it may have inspired the This period coincided with the rise of the so seductive and beautiful an aria that known as ‘Cimarosa’s oboe concerto, Ancient Greeks in their use of the instrument oboe as a solo instrument. It’s unclear precisely the oboe soars and spirals into the sky arranged by Arthur Benjamin’ as if called the aulos, which we now think was an how the shawm became the Baroque oboe of its own song. After this the finale Benjamin had edited the work for early oboe, with what is called a double-reed. but it was in France that the transformation releases cheerfulness and high spirits performance from an existing work. The Romans had their own type of oboe as became complete. Here the ‘hautbois’ (in in an effortless and joyful way. It is In fact the ‘Oboe Concerto on themes well, called the tibia. Developments throughout English, ‘high wood’) properly emerged. The surely no coincidence that the city that of Cimarosa’, to give it the correct the centuries led to a wide variety of reed English pronunciation of the word was ‘hoboy’ built the first opera house should have name, was brought to life in 1942 instruments but in the Baroque era, a number and around 1770 it became known formally produced so many composers who by the eminent Australian-born became obsolete. The old shawm, which was as an ‘oboe’. used instrumental forces in so sincere composer as an orchestration of some often identified as an oboe, lost its place. A Though it rose to prominence in France, and vocal a way as this. of Cimarosa’s harpsichord pieces. Benjamin preferred to imbue the work poem of the time celebrates the oboe because Italy proved the finishing school for the oboe. 15 Besozzi: Oboe Concerto No. 1 with a Baroque ethos, even though ‘it can be played in church, at home and Venice had the first opera houses, and it on the battlefield – everywhere that matters‘ was Venetian composers who first sought to in C major – III. Allegretto Cimarosa had been born in 1749 and The Besozzi family had an illustrious so post-dated the style (in fact he died – whilst the shawm was a ‘rural’ instrument provide the oboe with a suitable stage. Some, musical pedigree and was famous a few years after Mozart).However only fit to be played in a village. In fact like Vivaldi, tended to see the oboe as a reed throughout Italy and beyond. Carlo one views this, Benjamin has crafted certain technical advances in construction had version of the violin, and despite his beautiful Besozzi was an oboist and composer a lovely work, full of high spirits, great meant that the oboe could be used indoors, writing there was nothing automatically and his Concerto No. 1 in C major is warmth, with a grave Introduction unlike the shawm which retained its rustic, different about the oboe concertos he wrote a fine example of his Classical style, prefacing a faster movement and folk-like outdoors role. The distinction came – different from his violin concertos, that is. In its Allegretto finale revealing richly then the wondrous Siciliana third about because makers of instruments had now fact he sometimes designated both concertos contrasted themes, a glamorous movement, a distillation of the slow become specialists. Like Italian violin makers in for the same work. Albinoni was different. He cadenza, and plenty of opportunities dance, which the oboe projects with Cremona, there were oboe-making specialists responded to the effortless-sounding, aria-like for agile virtuosity. quiet dignity and eloquence. in Nuremburg, London and Amsterdam. quality of the oboe ‘in flight’; he used his Greater professionalism and specialism led to operatic background to fashion ravishing arias 8.578178 10 3 8.578178 for the oboe to ‘sing’ in slow movements.