Ralph Vaughan Williams (1872-1958)
Concerto for Oboe and String Orchestra in A minor
Neil Black, Oboe
The English Chamber Orchestra, Daniel Barenboim, Conductor
Deutsche
Grammophon 2530 906
Ralph Vaughan William's Concerto for Oboe was written in 1944 for Leon Goossens, who first performed it in September of that year. For those not familiar with Neil Black's playing, this recording of an outstanding British oboist playing the most famous of British oboe concertos will provide an appropriate introduction. Neil Black began his professional career in 1956, and was principal oboist with the London Philharmonic from 1958-60. In more recent years, he has appeared frequently with the English Chamber Orchestra as soloist in England and on tour in other countries. He has also recorded the Strauss Oboe Concerto with this orchestra.
The quality of Neil Black's sound is decidedly a more 'covered' and darker one than I have associated with other established British oboists, Leon Goossens or Evelyn Rothwell, for example. One assumes from this that the concept of oboe tone in England is evolving in two distinct directions. Black's articulation and phrasing are controlled with much sensitivity. His blend with the strings produces some ravishing pianissimo playing! The English Chamber Orchestra, conducted by Daniel Barenboim, plays Vaughan Williams' score with clarity and exceptionally good balance. This concerto is always referred to as "pastoral" in character, a term which applies, perhaps, to much of Vaughan Williams' music, indebted as it is to English folk music. The fullness of his scoring for the strings illuminates the solo oboe, setting it off in a delicate balance which is captured superbly by Neil Black and Barenboim.
The first movement, Rondo Pastorale (Allegro moderato quarter= 88) is serene except for the staccato middle section. There are three cadenza sections for oboe to be found in this movement, all of which serve to underline the freedom and tranquillity of the movement.
The second movement, Minuet and Musette (Allegro moderato dotted-half note = 64) is a traditional minuet and trio in form, if not in key scheme. The musette, with its mandatory drone, is the trio section. The low tessitura in parts of this movement adds to its difficulty. Mr. Black's registers are well matched, and the low staccato notes free.
The Finale (Scherzo) (Presto dotted-half note = 86) is the longest and most difficult of the three movements. In order to balance a concerto with three allegro movements, Vaughan Williams quotes themes from earlier movements here, making this a somewhat cyclic form. This serves to balance the concerto by recalling the more lyrical sections into the final scherzo movement. Rapid register changes in a triple meter of this tempo require a mercurial finger technique and excellent control of tempo. Mr. Black plays in as refined and secure a fashion as can be imagined, never sacrificing his sound or compromising the pitch. An added bonus to this recording is found on the opposite side. Vaughan Williams' Tuba Concerto, played by Arnold Jacobs and the Chicago Symphony, and The Lark Ascending, played by Pinchas Zuckerman.
Editor's Note: I am happy to reprint John Warrack's review of the reissue of the Vaughan Williams Concerto as recorded by its dedicatee. It first appeared in the October, 1977 issue of the Gramophone. The concerto has also been recorded by John Williams with the Bornemouth Symphony (not readily available in the US to my knowledge). There is a splendid recording of the concerto by Evelyn Rothwell, conducted by her husband, John Barbirolli, on the HMV label, of some twenty years ago; it is a fine example of this artist's work at its most satisfying. It is also unavailable through dealers, but a search through libraries would be well worth the effort to devotees of this work.
OBOE CONCERTOS.
Leon Goossens (oboe and oboe d'amore),
Philharmonia Orchestra conducted by *Alceo Galliera, +Walter Susskind. World
Records SH243 (£ 2.30). *From Columbia DX1444-6 (1/48), +from HMV mono
CLP1656 (9/63).
R. Strauss: Oboe Concerto in D major* (Recorded September
15th and 23rd, 1947, matrix CAX 10030/3, 10037/8).
Vaughan Williams: Oboe Concerto in A minor+ (June 4th and
September 1st, 1952).
Bach (arr. Tovey): Concerto in A major (oboe d'amore, with
Thornton Lofthouse, harpsichord continuo. June 1st, 1949 and June 3rd, 1952).
Eighty this year, Leon Goossens remains among the great oboists of our day, and this record is a welcome tribute to an artist of enduring vigor. His playing was being admired when, still in his teens, he was principal of the Queen's Hall Orchestra before the first world war; he was enchanting the aged and failing Delius with his playing on records made in the early 1930s, that have become classics the present performances, made in the late forties and early fifties, have in turn become classics; and I have no doubt that, if required, Goossens would cheerfully pack his oboe and set off for the recording studio tomorrow to make them all over again. The list of works dedicated to him is endless, and includes the names of Britten, Bax, Vaughan Williams, even Elgar (as I found when one day Goossens showed me a manuscript in one of his music drawers, a movement from an unfinished suite; persuading him that it was performable, I got Gordon Jacob commissioned to score it, and Goossens gave the first performance on television. The Soliloquy, played by Goossens, can be found on RCA LRL1 5133, 11/76).
These three performances date from the years when Goossens, in his early fifties, was in the prime of his long career, and just before he was entering into a long period of mysterious neglect by the record companies. Vaughan Williams' Concerto, not among the composer's major works but a very agreeable piece, is brilliantly played. It is technically quite awkward in places, not that one would notice this from Goossens' incomparably fluent performance; and it needs exactly the kind of graceful, slightly decorative phrasing it receives so as to make the most of its gentle lyricism. Tovey's Bach reconstruction is little heard nowadays scholarship having overtaken it in various ways but it is good to have this delightful performance recorded, and now revived. Goossens has also been a wonderful cor anglais player, and his command of the oboe d'amore, a charming instrument normally heard only in Bach Passions and perhaps Strauss' Sinfonia Domestica, makes one surprised afresh at its neglect by modern composers.
The Strauss performance is a document of considerable historical interest. Those who possess the Boosey and Hawkes score, or oboe and piano reduction, will have noticed that the final pages are quite different in this performance. As Norman Del Mar recounts in Vol. 3 of his Strauss study, this recording, made in September 1947, came before publication; and when Strauss was preparing the work for the engraver, he decided to scrap the first version and extend and alter the final pages. The original MS seems not to survive, or at any rate never to have been published: this record is thus, in every sense, the only record of the original. As an actual recording, it leaves something to be desired. The sound is poor, especially as far as the orchestra is concerned: much of Strauss' delicately calculated invention and nice instrumental balance vanishes in the general murk. But Goossens plays the work as no one else has. His slight fancifulness of phrasing is here exactly apt to a work which looks back through a faint Romantic haze at Baroque manners, and it has set a standard which no other oboist, in my experience, has equaled. But Goossens remains himself a standard. It is difficult to think of any other woodwind player who has given more inspiration to composers and delight to listeners, perhaps in the whole history of music. In his 80th birthday year, he earns the warmest of wishes from us all. J.W.
George Frideric Handel (1685-1759)
Sonatas for Oboe and Continuo
Sonata in G minor for Oboe and Continuo, Op. 1, No. 6
Trio Sonata No. 2 in D minor for two Oboes and Continuo
Sonata in C minor for Oboe and Continuo, Op. 1 , No. 8
Trio Sonata No. 3 in E-flat for two Oboes and Continuo
Ronald Roseman, Virginia Brewer, Oboes
Donald MacCourt, Bassoon
Timothy Eddy, Cello
Edward Brewer, Harpsichord
Nonesuch H-71339
(Stereo)
This recording of four Handel sonatas provides an unusually good opportunity to hear some of the most often-performed baroque sonatas for oboe in ornamented versions. Ronald Roseman, a remarkably versatile musician, has become well-known for his recordings of both twentieth century and earlier music (see his article "Baroque Ornamentation" in IDRS Journal No. 3, 1 975).
The G minor and C minor sonatas for oboe and continuo, Op. 1, Nos. 1 and 8 in Chrysander's catalogue, have long been among the most accessible sonatas for oboists, although they have suffered, in their popularity, numerous questionable editions. They are beautiful works by the mature composer, who was fond of the oboe. Handel was in his later 30's when these were first published in 1722.
The wealth of ideas in Mr. Roseman's ornamentation and his control of nuance serve the music impressively. The tempi in the slow movements accommodate the ornamentation nicely and the allegro movements, which tend to the faster side of the scale, are virtuosic in their effect. In this recording, the cello is used in the solo sonatas, and the bassoon in the trio sonatas as continuo instruments. The continuo players support the solo lines with a comfortable flow which allows the music to unwind gracefully. Ronald Roseman plays the solo sonatas, and is joined in the trio sonatas by Virginia Brewer.
The six sonatas for two oboes and continuo are among Handel's earliest instrumental compositions. Chrysander dates these sonatas from 1696, meaning that Handel would have been eleven years old if he composed them during that year. Several authorities, among them Paul Henry Lang, are doubtful that they were composed at such an early age. [Hallische Handel-Ausgabe, Serie IV, Band 9 (Barenreiter), Siegfried Flesch, Editor] Antony Hicks further doubts that they were composed by Handel at all. Additionally, certain aspects of the second oboe part, such as the double stops at the end of the first movement of Sonata No. 3, and the low range in other places have suggested to some that the second part was written for violin or oboe, which combination works quite nicely. As no autograph score of these works exists, we are left to wonder, although we are much richer for having these marvelous works in the trio sonata literature for two oboes.
The solo and trio sonatas recorded in this album all conform to the church sonata plan (with movements arranged in the slow-fast-slow-fast sequence) which Handel modeled after Corelli's exemplary sonatas. Mr. Roseman and Ms. Brewer take advantage of repeated sections within movements--as was the custom of the day--to infuse the music with the most fluent of embellishments. The slow movements, which offer the greater opportunity for free ornamentation, are suavely played, and the faster movements played with bravura. The spontaneity of their playing helps one to realize that the ornamentation implied in such baroque works is the element which makes them truly come to life within an authentic spirit of baroque performance. Performers playing baroque music in recent years have been more concerned with an accurate approach to ornamentation. There has been a growing abundance of reputable literature for instruction in this area, not to mention the major treatises of the 17th and 18th centuries. It is surprising, from one point of view, that there are not more recordings of baroque literature and editions which commit themselves as examples of baroque ornamentation for performance purposes. The recording, for this reason, is a valiant and welcome one. It is highly instructive to compare their interpretation with an urtext edition and observe the manner in which ornamentation has been utilized for these performances. One hopes that more baroque recordings of this nature will be forthcoming. J.R.M.