Pierre Pierlot made one of his infrequent visits to the United States with three appearances at New York's "Mostly Mozart" Festival in Avery Fisher Hall. On August 23, he performed the Mozart Quartet, K 370, with Jaime Laredo, violin; Michael Tree, viola; and Leslie Parnas, cello. The program included Mozart's Adagio and Rondo for Glass Harmonica, Flute, Oboe, Violin and Cello and Pleyel's Quintet for Flute, Oboe, Violin, Viola, and Cello in C (Op. 18, No. 2). Johann Christoph Friedrich Bach's Sonata for Flute, Oboe, and Continuo in C and Johann Christian Bach's Quintet in D (Op. 11, No. 6) for the same instrumental combination as the Pleyel, completed the program. Jean Pierre Rampal was the flutist in these works. Mr. Rampal and Mr. Pierlot were students together at the Paris Conservatoire and were co-founders of a baroque ensemble in Paris. Mr. Pierlot is now the distinguished professor of oboe at the Conservatoire and first oboist of the Paris Opera Orchestra. New York Times reviewer Raymond Ericson commented: "The Mozart Quartet gave Mr. Pierlot a chance to display his virtuosity and musicianship, which were unexceptionable. Whether it was the size of Fisher Hall or the typical French sound, the oboist's tone emerged smaller and more reedy than one usually hears from American players . . . this was no detriment to his performances." On August 24 and 25 Mr. Pierlot returned to perform Mozart's Concerto, K. 314 and Haydn's Concerto for Flute and Oboe in C, an arrangement of a concerto for the lira organizzata, commissioned by Ferdinand IV of Naples, who apparently was a virtuoso on this hurdy-gurdy type instrument. Peter G. Davis of the New York Times found the solo parts of the Haydn "adapted nicely as a flute-and-oboe duo, a fact readily audible in this delicious performance. Mr. Pierlot cultivates a typically French tone that may sound a bit thin, even disembodied, to ears accustomed to more robust oboe technique. Once the adjustment had been made, though, any listener would surely be disarmed by such finely spun and sensitively shaped phrases". Mr. Rampal conducted the Mozart Concerto.
Maurice Bourgue made two appearances in 4 London's Wigmore Hall in March. On the 6th he performed sonatas of Bach, Poulenc, Donizetti, and Dutilleux, with his wife, the pianist, Colette Kling. The program included Schumann's Romances, Op. 94, Britten's Six Metamorphoses, and Berio's Sequenza VII. On March 10 he performed the Mozart Quartet, K 370 and the Britten Phantasy Quartet with members of the Gabrieli String Quartet. Mr. Bourgue is first oboist of the Orchestre de Paris.
Sara Schwartz, a graduate of the Manhattan School of Music, made her debut in New York's Carnegie Recital Hall on May 6. Her program included the Britten Metamorphoses, the Mozart Quartet, K 370, the Handel G Minor Sonata, and the Sonata of Henri Dutilleux. Donal Henahan, writing in the New York Times, found Miss Schwartz "a highly proficient oboist . . . who found virtually nothing to daunt her technically in the Britten . . . instrumentally, she has little left to master. Interpretively, Miss Schwartz left a less distinct impression. She tended to call on the same direct, regular style of play in every work, as if not presuming to impose personal ideas on the music. "
Graham Powning has sent along a program of a December 2, 1978 concert of the Australian Double Reed Society. [Regular readers will remember Mr. Powning's fascinating article on Australian oboe music in the May, 1977 issue of TTWO.] The program ranged from the medieval - in which Rosalind McGrath played shawm, cornemuse and bombarde - to Mr. Powning's own work, Bionic Music, performed by all the members of the Society, with Mr. Powning conducting. Gordon Jacob's Two Pieces, a Sonata da Camera for three oboes of Johann Rosenmueller, the Poulenc Trio, and the Dvorak Serenade were also performed, and the concert came to a close with Handel's Music for the Royal Fireworks. Oboists participating included Judy Elliott, Telena Allport, Pauline Strait, Rosalind McGrath, Grant Dickson, and Graham Powning; bassoonists included John Cran, Roger Brooke, John Noble, Martin Foster, Jane Mason and Vicki Grant. This ambitious program surely shows that "doublereeders are alive and well in the Antipodes," as Mr. Powning so aptly puts it. He is first oboist of the Sydney Opera House orchestra.
Another distinguished Australian oboist, Jiri Tancibudek, writes to say that he has spent two weeks early this year as oboe instructor in the second Malaysian National Music Camp in Penang . . . he comments "there is a lot of genuine interest in western music but as you can imagine their musical standard and educational facilities are quite embryonic still." Mr. Tancibudek has recently recorded the Martinu Oboe Concerto; he is the work's dedicatee.
David Cowley presented a recital on March S at Wigmore Hall in London, assisted by Bryan Evans, pianist. The program included J. S. Bach's G Minor Sonata, the Pasculli Concerto, Marin Marais' "Folies de Espagne", and the Saint-Saëns Sonata.
Heinz Holliger made one of his frequent appearances at London's Proms, this time in a performance of Bernd Alois Zimmerman's Oboe Concerto, with the BBC Symphony Orchestra, Michael Gielen conducting. The concert took place at the Albert Hall on August 8.
Andrew Knights, assisted by pianist Jane Dodd completed his series of three oboe recitals on July 3 at St. Olave's in Hart Street, London. This last program, entitled "The 20th Century Oboe" followed the Baroque and the Romantic. His series was designed "to encourage people to accept the oboe as a solo instrument . . . it has a wider repertoire than is commonly supposed."
The publishing firm, Barenreiter, announces that the six Zelenka sonatas for two oboes, long out of print, are once again available . . . Musica Rara's long-awaited collection of all the arias and duets from the cantatas, Masses, and Passions of J. S. Bach with obbligatos for oboe, oboe d'amore, or oboe da caccia, are now available in a performing edition, with piano reductions. There are thirty-one volumes, quoted in the catalog at 8 pounds per volume; American dealers are charging as much as $25. per volume, however Charles Martin Loeffler's Two Rhapsodies for oboe, viola, and piano, is again available in a beautiful new edition from McGinnis & Marx in New York at $16.
Charles Lehrer, a frequent contributor to these pages, presented a faculty recital at the University of Massachusetts in Amherst on September 12. The program consisted of Telemann's Concerto in C Minor, J. C. Bach's Concerto in F Major, the Concerto sopra motivi dell' opera La Favorita di Donizetti of Pasculli, Trois Gymnopedies of Satie, and Couperin's L'Apotheose de Corelli in which he was assisted by other faculty artists.
Kimberly Bryden appeared as soloist with the New York Philharmonic, Zubin Mehta conducting, in two Young People's Concerts on April 28 and 30 in Avery Fisher Hall.
She competed for this opportunity with some fifty especially invited young artists and was the only wind player to win. She performed the rondo from Mozart's Concerto in C Major, K. 314. Miss Bryden is a June graduate of the Interlochen Arts Academy where she was a pupil of Daniel Stolper; she is continuing her studies with John Mack at the Cleveland Institute of Music.
Robert D. Gilbert was recently presented with a specially-made Loree oboe, of rosewood with gold keywork, to celebrate the thirtieth anniversary of the founding of his business in Los Angeles. Mr. Gilbert is a longtime contributing member of the IDRS.
The New Republic's May 12 issue included a review of a Bach record - Brandenburgs Nos. 2 and 5, and the Wedding Cantata (BWV 202), by William Youngren-in which the reviewer's enthusiasm for the playing of Ray Still seems boundless.
. . . and instead of the cackling baroque oboe we have the extraordinary and justly famous Ray Still . . . Why on earth, I wondered, would Levine choose to back up such memorable performances with the charming but insignificant Wedding Cantata instead of wedging in another Brandenburg or two? Two-thirds of the way through the side I got my answer: suddenly, there was Ray Still, playing the oboe more beautifully than I had ever heard it played. I have always thought the oboe the most expressive of wind instruments-one of the great delights of my childhood was the spotless oboe solo, played staccato and very fast but with each note round and firm as a tropical fruit, on Toscanini's 1938 BBC recording of Rossini's overture to La Scala di Seta. (Years later I learned that Toscanini had personally edited the oboe part and had sent it ahead in manuscript, weeks before his departure for London, so that the BBC's Terence MacDonough could practice it.) The aria on which Still is featured is a jaunty and gracious peasant dance celebrating the joys of (just barely) premarital love: "Sich uber im Lieben, im Scherzen sich herzen, ist besser als Florens vergangliche Lust." Still's rich tone, sensitive phrasing and immense rhythmic authority when soloing, are if anything, surpassed by the miraculous tact and grace with which he plays behind the strong pure singing of the fine young soprano Kathleen Battle, not merely accompanying her but partnering her, like a great male dancer . . . Edward Denby once wrote that Nijinsky's thigh was more expressive than most people's faces; paraphrasing Denby, I would say that Ray Still, simply sitting on a low E, is more expressive than most oboists playing the most passionate and varied solo one could imagine . . . . we almost never hear wind or brass playing that possesses the total technical and expressive mastery of the greatest string playing . . . . but that is precisely what Ray Still has given us here, and on the basis of this record alone I would number him among the finest musical artists of our time. What a pity that the repertory in which we can hear him to best advantage is so limited!"
"How many concertgoers have ever heard Beethoven's Variations on Mozart's "La ci darem la mano" from "Don Giovanni?" Peter Davis opens his New York Times review of the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center's April 6th Tully Hall concert with his question. He goes on: "This piece was only published 65 years ago, and the odd combination - two oboes and English horn - has surely discouraged performances since then. An early work dating from 1797 and admittedly a piece d'occasion, the Variations show Beethoven in one of his unbuttoned moods, obviously relishing the tangy sounds of these reed instruments. Leonard Arner, and Carolyn Pollak, oboists, and Jane Cochran, English horn player, gave the work racy, flavorful treatment, very much in the spirit of the music."
Joseph Robinson performed the Bach Concerto in C Minor for Oboe, Violin and Orchestra, BWV 1060, with Pinchas Zukerman, violinist, and the New York Philharmonic on May 19. Mr. Robinson is the Philharmonic's first oboist.
Anne Leek, a doctoral student of Thomas Stacy at the Juilliard School, made her formal debut in the Carnegie Recital. Hall on February S. Her program included Britten's Six Metamorphoses, the Pasculli Concerto, Mozart's Quartet, K. 370, and the premiere of David Schiff's Three Poems of Sir Thomas Wyatt. Raymond Ericson, writing in the New York Times, found "all of Miss Leek's assignments handled with aplomb and understanding. She produced a notably full, round tone, and there were few technical flaws. . . . Mr. Schiff's setting of the Wyatt poems . . . is for mezzo-soprano with the unusual combination of oboe, horn, and cello. The composer has used what would seem like an intractable trio with extreme skill in reflecting the mood of the poems he selected."
Stephen Colburn, first oboist of the Milwaukee Symphony, was soloist with the orchestra in April. The Milwaukee Journal's critic called Mr. Colburn "one of the orchestra's outstanding assets" and his reading of the Telemann concerto "elegant. . . . If the intimate style of conductor Giovaninetti's chamber ensemble was defeated by the big hall, the sweetness of Colburn's playing brought its own reward." Mr. Colburn continues his career as a conductor - of the Milwaukee Chamber Music Society and the Racine Symphony Orchestra.
Harvey McGuire has retired from the Cleveland Orchestra after more than thirty seasons as its solo English horn player . . . . John Snow has joined the Detroit Symphony . . . . Jonathan Dlouhy is the new first oboist of the Atlanta Symphony . . . . Richard Dorsey has joined the Toronto Symphony . . . . Harold Smoliar is the new English horn player of the Pittsburgh Symphony . . . . Laura Jaeger will become a member of the faculty of the Crane School of Music at the SUNY in Potsdam, New York . . . . Rudolph Vrbsky has been appointed to the faculty of Western Illinois University at Macomb . . . . William Bennett has joined the oboe section of the San Francisco Symphony . . . . Linda Strommen is a member of the Milwaukee Symphony . . . . Jan Eberle has joined the faculty of the University of Akron.
Notes, the quarterly Journal of the Music Library Association comments in its June, 1979 issue: "Publications representing the interests of double reed performers have shown a decided improvement in content, organization, and typography since they were last canvassed in this Journal . . . . To The World's Oboists and To The World's Bassoonists have merged and adopted a less unwieldy title, The Double Reed.