[EDITOR'S NOTE: This article first appeared in BSO, the quarterly newsletter of the Boston Symphony Orchestra. It is reprinted here with the permission of the author. The editor is grateful to Leslie Ploof of the Boston Symphony's public relations office for the photographs and for all her assistance.]

Oboe playing, like bird watching
and taffy pulling, is a passion that
seems to run in families.
The earliest famous oboe clan was
that of Frenchman jean Philidor,
who played at the court of
Louis XIV; after him, seven other
Philidors put lip to reed.
Today the reigning oboe family in the
U.S. goes by the name of Gomberg:
Harold, 42, is first oboist of
the New York Philharmonic;
Ralph, 37, is first oboist of
the Boston Symphony.

Time Magazine, December 1958

Throughout the musical world, the talents of the Gomberg family are widely heralded. And, closer to home, anyone who has attended a Boston Symphony concert within the last thirtyseven years has known the warmth and singing tone, "the darkling brilliance" as the same Time magazine article put it, of the BSO's principal oboist Ralph Gomberg.

After nearly four decades of that daunting position, Gomberg has elected to trade in his life of whittling reeds for perfecting his forehand, his fairway drive, and his lamb curry -just some of the many extra-musical interests he has never had time to pursue fully. (He will play throughout this Tanglewood season, retiring in September.)

"Of course retirement will be a tremendous change," he says. "I can't tell you how I'll miss my colleagues and my association with this great institution. "

Gomberg and his wife, Sydelle, currently Director of the Boston Ballet School (the official school of Boston Ballet Company), and as integral and beloved a member of the BSO scene as her husband, are talking and reminiscing about their years with the BSO in Sydelle's Boston Ballet office overlooking Clarendon and Warren streets. Sydelle, her hair swept up in a dancer's chignon, reflects between phone calls and consultations against a backdrop of leotards and legwarmers. "It truly has been like a close extended family all these years," she comments. "Our kids to this day refer to Uncle Sherman [Walt], Uncle Joey [Silverstein]. When you go through so many births, deaths, illnesses, weddings, bar mitzvahs - there's an unbelieveable bond that's created within the orchestra over the years. "

Gomberg was born in Boston's West End, the youngest of seven children, five of whom went on to graduate from the Curtis Institute of Music. His older brother, Robert, was a violinist in the Philadelphia Orchestra under Leopold Stokowski; brother Harold was, of course, principal oboist for thirty-four years with the New York Philharmonic; a third brother, Leo, was principal trumpet in the Radio City Music Hall Orchestra and the New York City Center Symphony under Bernstein. One of his sisters, Ciel, was a violin soloist under contract at NBC while another sister, Edyth, was a cellist who married George Zazofsky, a longtime member of the BSO violin section, and whose son is Peter Zazofsky, the concert violinist. "It was a question of who would get what room to practice in, " explains Gomberg. "Being the youngest, I got the bathroom. It gradually dawned on my mother that some of us were pretty talented," he continues. "She was told about this fabulous school in Philadelphia where all students were admitted on merit and went tuition-free. She packed up the whole family and we took a bus to Philadelphia - what a schlep that was - and five of us ended up at Curtis."

At fourteen, Gomberg became the youngest student ever accepted by the renowned oboe teacher Marcel Tabuteau. "He opened my eyes to what music was all about," says Gomberg. "He understood the spirit of it, the beauty of music. He was like a surrogate father to me. " At eighteen Gomberg became the first oboist in what was called the All-American Young Orchestra. Its music director was Leopold Stokowski. "God, did I have nerves," sighs Gomberg, recalling the audition. Shortly after winning the position, he embarked on the S.S. Brasilia for a two-month tour of South America with Stokowski conducting every concert.

Gomberg then recounts getting a call from Eugene Ormandy in 1941. Ormandy had been asked by "some rear admiral" to assemble what became the Philadelphia Navy Yard Band, to play at parades, and the commissioning of aircraft carriers and ships. "Ormandy said to me years later, 'Boy did I fix you up.'" laughs Gomberg.

After a year playing principal oboe in Baltimore, Gomberg then left for Los Angeles to care for his older brother, who was taken seriously ill. While in southern California, he received a call from an aspiring young conductor in New York named Leonard Bernstein. "Lenny was looking for a first oboist for his City Center Orchestra," explained Gomberg. "He hired me on the phone."

"Those were wonderful days. I remember Lenny, who was about twenty-eight then, holding court backstage with the most interesting people in New York showing up - Judy Holliday, Adolph Green, the Mayor." The City Center Orchestra also played for the City Center Opera and Ballet, with one performance, recalls Gomberg, even conducted by George Balanchine himself. He also found time to play in the Mutual Broadcasting Orchestra and to found the New York Woodwind Quintet.

At the same time, Sydelle Gomberg was an aspiring young ballerina, dancing with the Metropolitan Opera ballet, and at Radio City Music Hall, which, as the only institution offering year-round employment, was then the training ground for dancers. In 1945 she landed a soloist role in "Lute Song" starring Yul Brynner and Mary Martin (and, Gomberg points out, also featuring a young unknown actress named Nancy Davis, who today goes by her married name, Nancy Reagan).

"During 'Lute Song' I spent a lot of time at Leo Gomberg's [Ralph's brother, the trumpet player of the Radio City Orchestra] and his wife Helen's house," Sydelle explained. "Eventually my brother and sister-in-law got us together," adds Gomberg, "and we went bowling - for the first and last time - on our first date."

Sydelle remembers returning backstage at "Lute Song" to her dressing table and announcing to the cast that she had just met the man she was going to marry.

In 1950, two years after their wedding, Gomberg heard of the opening in Boston. "In those days," he explains, "Boston was the only orchestra that provided 52-week-a-year employment. It was definitely the job to have. I was so thrilled to win it. I know Thomas Wolfe said 'You can't go home again', but here I was, coming home to Boston."

Gomberg remembers the first two years as somewhat difficult in that the orchestra was tuning to 444 cycles per second as opposed to 440, the international standard pitch. "Koussevitzky had liked the higher pitch because he thought it made the orchestra sound more brilliant," explained Gomberg. "It was really difficult for me since it greatly affected the way I had to make the reeds."

"My first rehearsal with the orchestra, I was so tense," Gomberg recalls. "It was with Munch, of course, and we were playing [Roussel's] Bacchus et Ariane. There's that little oboe solo of three quarter-notes. I had no idea from his beat - which looked like he was making French mayonnaise - if it was in six or three. So I didn't come in. He stood there and looked at me and then smiled. I figured it out and came in the next time."

Both Gombergs break into knowing smiles as they recount the 1960 eight-week tour to Taiwan, Japan, and Australia. "Eight weeks, can you imagine the orchestra on an eight-week tour now?" says Sydelle. "I've never been so depressed as the day he left, me standing there with four little kids and a German shepherd. "

After the forty -eight -hour trip from Boston to Taipei, it turned out that the hotel in the city was overbooked and a portion of the orchestra had to be bused to Peitu, ten miles outside the city. "When I arrived, I was so mad. Some of the guys were already there and they came out onto a balcony, all smiles. I couldn't believe they weren't upset." Then, Gomberg continued, he learned that the Shakespeare Inn, where they were staying, was actually a government run bordello - closed down for the week to accommodate the Boston Symphony!

"You know, I feel so good about retiring," Gomberg says. "I feel I really gave of myself, always tried to keep the standards of playing to what I wanted, and I received so much back. I played with Stokowski, Reiner, Bernstein, Klemperer, Mitropoulos, Koussevitzky, Munch, Monteux, Ansermet. Those are incredible memories."

What are some of the masterpieces he'll miss the most, oboistically speaking? "Brahms 1, the slow movement," he muses. "The Eroica, Berlioz's Romeo and Juliet, the slow movement of the Brahms Violin Concerto, Ibert's Escales, and Mahler's Das Lied von der Erde." This summer at Tanglewood will afford Gomberg - and audiences - the chance to enjoy some wonderful oboe writing in Ravel's Tombeau de Couperin, Tchaikovsky's Fourth Symphony, and Mozart's Serenade for Winds.

"If I've learned one thing, or if I could pass on one thing, it's that music is not a technical art, it's an expressive art," he adds. "The oboe is such an expressive instrument - when it starts to play, it's a unique sound and everyone is intrigued with it - I hope! " he adds, laughing.

"I feel we've been truly blessed," says Sydelle. "We have four wonderful children, we've made such friends in the orchestra and among those associated with the orchestra. Whenever I meet other oboists' wives, there's a real cameraderie between us. Try living with someone who goes around the house dropping little shavings from their reeds everywhere."

"It's the law of compensation," adds Ralph. "If you play the oboe," he says, emphasizing both syllables, then you figure something good has to come back to you from all that suffering! I have the happiest memories of my years here. And now there's the excitement of the years ahead with Sydelle, my kids... "

"And our new baby," injects Sydelle. "A Siamese blue point. "

"What more could you ask?" concludes her husband, with a shrug of his shoulders and that characteristic Gomberg grin.

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