I would like to describe in this article the final years of oboe recital development that I undertook at the University of Massachusetts in Amherst. Part I of this series was created in 1976 at the specific request of the editor of the I. D. R. S. journal, Dan Stolper, after I had sent him a recital program from September of that year. Dan had asked that I explain to the readers just how this all had come about and where it was heading. This first installment was followed five years later with an update which described how tenure decisions and unionization had affected my productions.

In recent years, the effects of unionization and the shrinking student population have joined to create new pressures upon the professor of music, especially the oboists. In the little state of Massachusetts there are few players of this instrument to recruit in the first place, and the few that do come face, upon graduation, the huge glut of experienced players that roam the country from audition to audition, almost as a pack, in search of work. The watchwords at UMass have become the three R's: Recruit, Retain, and Record! If these ideals were realized, then the professor has opportunity for Merit Monies made available through union contracts. Therefore, in the fall of 1980, I set about to record as much of my recital repertory as possible, to recruit oboe students like mad, and to play recitals which would cause the little fledglings to stick around for four years. It was the Mack philosophy of first proving that one really knows how to play before any attempt is made to teach oboe students anything that kept my recital series going forward.

I should mention that during these last years at UMass, I came under the influence of both John Mack and his most important disciple, Joseph Robinson. Prior to this time my models had been Leon Goossens, Jurg Schaeftlein, and Heinz Holliger, despite the fact that my major training had been with John de Lancie, Louis Rosenblatt and Ralph Gomberg. In the summer of 1982, Nancy and I experienced the Mack Camp and that was followed the summer after by a Robinson seminar in Carmel which was concerned with Tabuteau's concepts and Robinson's realization of these ideas.

I must say at this point, that I have been a little hesitant to describe more of my recitals to the I.D.R.S. readership since not all oboists have taken kindly to my remarks or even to the idea that I have been required to play these as part of my yearly duties at UMass. I once asked a member of the Personnel Committee, which governs our faculty, what would happen if one of our artist-teachers failed to present a yearly recital. The answer came back: "Don't even think it!"

On the other hand, there have been many people who have said directly to me: "Hey, keep those oboe recitals going!" The most recent comment of this nature came from the English horn player of the Cleveland Orchestra, Felix Kraus, as we took leave of one another at Peter Klatt's Forrest's Music Store. So it is to Felix, and to the many other supportive readers that I am dedicating these remarks which describe just how I assembled the final seven years of recitals for the oboe at UMass.

RECITAL 17: September 7, 1980

My New York debut out of the way, I could relax a bit, and therefore I planned a joint recital with my flutist colleague, Joanne Tanner. We would only play one work together: Vivaldi's PV 402, a Trio Sonata (designated Concerto) in G-Minor. My other offerings were the York Bowen Sonata, which I have long loved since I first heard Jim Lakin play it at Michigan in 1967, and J.S. Bach's Sonata in G-Minor, BWV 1020, an unbelievably gorgeous work. Contrasting with these two pieces was Florian Mueller's Etudes in the New Style which he had composed especially to help me as I was in the throes of trying to learn the Berio Sequenza. Joanne played the masterful Martinu and Hindemith Flute Sonatas.

I cannot say that the audience was particularly excited by what they heard, since by this time in my UMass career, audiences at the university had heard so much music from so many diverse artists that unless you were ready to practically stand on your head, the reception was somewhere north of blase! To make matters worse, the university had been closed down that weekend for a lack of any water and all the students sent home. So, by the Sunday night of the recital, although the student body was returning, there was confusion as to whether or not the recital was still on. It was, therefore, to a small and somewhat bored audience that we plyed our trade. The Mueller pieces got a small rise from my colleague, bassoonist Frank Morelli, who thought I sounded quite electronic!

RECITAL 18: February 22, 1981

To offset the Fall Fiasco I decided to hit hard with a Spring Musicale: a concert of several of the most important works ever composed which included the oboe would be offered. As a last chance to perform Bach with my good friend Gretchen d'Armand, who was moving to Alaska, I chose the Bach Cantata Ich bin vergnugt mit meinem Glucke. Such a beautiful ritornello for the oboe at the opening of this music! I often felt tears coming as we rehearsed it. This was followed by the Mozart Oboe Quartet which I had not played for several years: what a pleasure to renew acquaintance with this music, particularly with the help of the New Mozart Edition. The second half included Prokofiev's Quintet and this excited the audience very much particularly as I lifted my instrument into the air at the end as the clarinet and oboe trade back and forth on motivic material reminiscent of Klezmer music. The recital ended with the playing of the Bach Double, BWV 1060, Jill Levy being on solo violin.

Now, this concert was part of a much bigger picture, for in fact it was organized by the energetic cellist, Adriana Contino, who had recently left the Pittsburgh Symphony and moved back to her father's home in Amherst. During a period of three years Adriana made the Contino residence the center of incredible chamber music concerts. (I remember one evening when Paul Olefsky was there playing on and on into the night as he tried out Adriana's new Cornelissen cello!). All of the rehearsals for this latest recital had been held in the Contino's huge warm living room and I remember that the ambiance together with Adriana's encouragement made the final product one of the most memorable of my career.

RECITAL 19: September 14, 1981

I entitled this fall recital: "Music for the Virtuoso Oboist". This was because the premiere of Sal Macchia's brilliant music, Senfl '81 was included as the finale. Only the first movement for oboe alone actually made it into the recital as the sextet for which it was written had not enough time to prepare the remaining five movements.

The evening opened with two of the major Baroque sonatas for oboe: Handel's G-Minor Sonata, Op.1, No.6 and Bach's "KillerSonata" also in G-Minor, BWV 1030b. For the Handel I composed intricate florid ornamentation similar to that used by Bach in his harpsichord version of the D-Minor Marcello Oboe Concerto. And for the Bach, just like in Holliger's new recording which had just appeared, I really moved the tempo of that first movement. Between the fuga and gigue I added a cadenza which Joe Robinson was later to characterize as being "from the planet Krypton "!

Britten's Temporal Variations and Insect Pieces ended the evening and at the reception which followed I learned that although the Insects came off as being "cute", most people found the Variations to be somewhat of a bore. On the other hand, the really major offering of that evening was my reconstruction of the second movement of Beethoven's Oboe Concerto, H. 12. This still has people talking and eventually the work I put into it was to change my entire life.

RECITAL 20: February 28, 1982

Again, the spring came and I felt that I wanted to duplicate the chamber music success of the previous year. Adriana Contino was still in town and was going through a major Bach Cantata "attack". And again, a small group of highly dedicated performers gathered in her wonderful living room to rehearse Bach and to cat spaghetti afterwards with much singing and dancing. What jolly times those were!

The Cantatas chosen were Meine Seufzer, meine Tranen, BWV 13 and Ich habe genug, BWV 82. 1 opened with Meine Seufzer because of the Oboe da Caccia aria with tenor, for which I recruited my colleague Jon Humphrey. Sal Macchia's new sextet, Senfl '81 was finished and became the central music which was followed by Bach's very sad, Ich habe genug. Actually, concluding the concert with this work was a major error because of the inclusion of the choral "Es ist genug" at its end. As it happened, all of the performers became very depressed because of the connection of this choral with Alban Berg's Violin Concerto written as a memorial to Walter Gropius' daughter, Manon who died as a teenager. To make matters worse, Adriana was actually in the midst of seeing a friend die. We all went home afterwards in major sulks.

The Sal Macchia music, though, was great fun (too bad we didn't place it last), and we were to play it on many more occasions. Senfl '81 is a cantus firmus work based upon several Senfl Lieder that are dear to Sal and me. The second movement is in minimal music style. Also within its six movements, Sal includes a jazz oriented version of Ach Elesin utilizing the English horn.

RECITAL 21: September 23, 1982

When Frank Morelli, bassoon vassoon virtuoso supreme, (who is also a major undiscovered Las Vegas-type comedian), approached me about a duo recital, I was really reluctant: after all this guy can wipe me out when it comes to the numbers of notes he can spit out per square inch. But even more threatening, Frank is a master of Schtick! Well, I practiced my deep knee bends, got my eyebrows lifting on cue, and turned the metronome up to top speed for my daily scale practice, and basically bit the bullet. Now, I had been through all of this years before when Joel Krosnick was the faculty cellist: I mean Joel had the women in the audience actually fainting away from watching his stage business.

Our first offering was the finger-breaking Francesco Biscogli Concerto for Oboe, Trumpet and Bassoon. Musically, this is a real dreck, the kind of thing that would have given C.P.E. Bach a good laugh! I followed with the pretty-sounding but ultra-conservative Suite Francaise of Marcel Bitsch. Leduc, publishers of Suite Francaise, has made its reputation by publishing many of the most important sets of etudes used by wind players along with many highly conservative solos for use at the annual Concours in the Conservatoires of France. Sal Macchia, who was the bass player in the recital, said that when he noticed the Leduc cover on the piano during the rehearsal, he did not even care what the piece was, but left the room as soon as it was rehearsed. On the other hand, I had great fun playing this and dedicated it to my flutist colleague, Joanne Tanner, who had recently played a recital with a work at least as questionable. In the years which followed Joanne and I would continue these offerings for one another's amusement.

A Trio Sonata for Oboe, Bassoon and Continuo, clearly in the style of one of the Loelliet Family composers, but credited to Handel, followed. Frank then gave his rendition of the Willson Osborne Rhapsody which he delivered in his unmistakable style: phrasing that tears the listener's heart out and then transplants it back!

For the finale, Nancy and I joined Frank in the Fifth of Zelenka's Sonatas. Well, I don't know if it was the fact that the Continuo was cooking that night or what, but suddenly and without warning we were really moving down the track: I mean the tempo was really fast! I looked over at Frank during the middle of the first movement, the bassoon appearing as a small tube in the hands of this big man, and he was in ecstasy, his fingers flying. Personally, I was scared to death. But this was nothing, for after a relaxing slow movement, it started again and faster! I was thinking that we would all soon crash, that the whole ensemble would explode, that we would self-destruct. Smoke poured from Frank's fingers, the deep kneebends took him practically to the floor. (And we're talking a tall man here who stands to play the bassoon). Nancy was unfazed though, and I (I'm supposed to be experienced here folks), well I just kept going and praying. As we hit the final cadence the audience jumped to its feet, applauding and screaming over and over bravi, bravissimi! We were all soaked with perspiration, Frank was laughing hysterically, and I was sure I had died and gone to heaven.

RECITAL 22: September 25, 1983

Although the concert with Frank Morelli had truly freed me and everyone else concerned from the mechanics of our instruments, it had not satisfied within me the longing to play truly great music. The Zelenkas are wonderful fun to play and I am always amazed at his musical language, particularly his rhythmic mannerisms, structure, and chromaticism. But I needed to play the kind of piece this season that connected me in with the Deity, and Schubert's Sonata in Bb-Major, Op.30 was that piece. I had noticed how perfectly the tonalities of this work suited the oboe of the day being developed by Joseph Sellner. It seemed to me that this four-hand piano sonata was in reality the basis of an octet that Schubert never got to orchestrating, an octet with oboe riding on top! My version for oboe and piano still needed two pianists, (my pianist colleague, Nigel Coxe of Percy Grainger fame, called it "kinky"), but it worked for my selfish purposes.

Nancy and I then followed with Nikolaus Simrock's Duos arranged in 1799 from Mozart's La Nozze di Figaro. Actually these are meant to be played by two transverse flutes, and we had quite a bit of work to do, interchanging the two voices in order to equalize their work. We played six from the set on this recital and the remaining six on Nancy's recital a month later.

Another cantus firmus work was composed for me during this period. This time it was based upon several songs by George Gershwin. Sweet George! by Joseph Marchello was not a complete debut, as only the first of four projected movements was ready: the others would follow on my spring recital. (Yes, I was preparing and giving two faculty solo recitals a year at this time!)

Three small pieces followed: Barlow's Winter's Passed, Ravel's Vocalise, and Bozza's Fantasie Pastorale. I first heard the Bozza at the I.D.R.S. convention held at Towson State where it was played so beautifully by Dick Woodhams. Unfortunately, the opening motivic material which quotes Respighi's Pines of Rome, did not go over well with several of my colleagues.

Nancy and I ended this musicale with Zelenka's ever-smooth Sonata II and that night we decided to keep the Zelenka series going despite such comments as: "Who is this Zelenka guy" and "Well, I suppose you oboetypes have to play that stuff".

RECITAL 23: February 22, 1984

This recital is one that came very close to wiping out my embouchure for a month: it simply was much too long. Rehearsals the day before ran three solid hours on Edward Jacobs' new work alone! In the excitement of putting together a musically interesting evening I have often neglected to consider the physical pain incurred in the face!

Two Bach Arias for two oboes, soprano, basso, and continuo acted as the preliminary music. These were include basically for Nancy and me to lead off, as we were to close this evening with yet another Zelenka Sonata. The remainder of Joseph Marchello's Sweet George! got the toes a tappin' and was followed by Carl Reinecke's Trio for Oboe, Horn and Piano of 1887. This is the sort of piece that causes major misunderstandings between oboe players and clarinetists as concerns their Brahms chamber music repertory. (They have it, we don't, and they rub it in.)

Edward Jacobs, a gifted undergraduate composer, created Leyres for Nancy and me, and especially for this concert. In this engaging nonet, the English Horn and Oboe play against the excessively thin to extremely thick textures of the ensemble. Zelenka IV brought the evening, and my embouchure, to a close.

RECITAL 24: September 5, 1984

An evening of oboe music from the Romantic era issued in my 17th year at UMass. To everyone's surprise this concert did not include those perennial favorites, the Schumann Romanzen, the Donizetti and Bellini Concerti, or Saint Saens very late Sonata. Instead, compositions by four of the 19th Century's greatest stars of the oboe were heard: Verroust's Quatrieme Solo de Concert, Josef Sellner's Duo VI, Carlo Yvon's English Horn Sonata, and three of Apollon Barret's Melodies of 1850. Interspersed were the Nielsen Fantasistykker and Louis Spohr's Variations from his Notturno, op. 34. As it turned out, the reviewer preferred the music composed by the oboists over those of the well-known composers Spohr and Nielsen! The Barret Melodies 3, 6, and 18 were arranged by me for oboe, English horn, and piano. As a regular part of my teaching of the oboe, I create piano realizations for all of the Barret Melodies and Etudes. And so, these arrangements came out of my experience in the studio where I noticed an inner voice written by Barret into the bass line on these three melodies and allotted this part to the English horn.

RECITAL 25: October 1, 1985

I have always enjoyed the usage of The Arrival of the Queen of Sheba in Handel's Solomon as the sign off music for Roberti. Lurtsema's weekend Morning Pro Musica radio show from Boston. Opening my yearly recital with this single movement concerto for two oboes lent a festive mood to the occasion and, of course, practically everyone in the audience knew it well.

The Arrival acted as sort of a prelude or warm up to the supremely difficult Oboe Concerto in D-Minor of J.S. Bach, BWV 1059. The sweet music of Delius' Fennimore and Gerda followed. I had much work to do to straighten out the ending of the second Interlude as so much integral motivic material is missing in Eric Fenby's arrangement for Leon Goossens. I then presented my second reconstruction. This time it was Mozart's F-Major Oboe Concerto, KV 293 (lst movement) and I must report that everyone present did love it very much, though Sal Macchia wished that I had written a longer development. In any case, the reception of this work made me very happy indeed.

The second half opened with another dedication of a mediocre piece to my flutist friend, Joanne Tanner: this time it was Wolf-Ferrari's Idillio-Concertino. For some unknown reason, I enjoyed playing this piece, but I dared not tell anyone at the time! Sonata I of Jan Dismas Zelenka brought the evening to a close and as we played it I thought of Josef Marx who so many years earlier had tried in his McGinnis and Marx Catalogue to convince oboists to take a look at this engaging music.

RECITAL 26: September 28, 1986

This recital brought to a close 19 years of teaching and playing in Amherst at the University of Massachusetts. At the time it was played I was in the process of making my decision to return to graduate school for a second doctorate, this time in Historical Musicology. This desire to know more about my art had come about gradually after the time I had created the reconstruction of the Beethoven Oboe Concerto. By the fall of 1986 it had become clear to me that I would need the advanced training of a Ph.D. in order to continue my work in unearthing and understanding oboe repertory of the past.

Opening with Handel's Sonata in F-Major for two oboes and continuo, I moved directly into my intabulation of Johann Vanhal's F-Major Oboe Concerto which I created from the manuscript parts in the Oettingen-Wallerstein collection. I must report that this concerto is a very major work and I hope to make it available soon.

The Poulenc Sonata was also included as I had played it on my very first recital for UMass in 1968. And the ending included Zelenka's Sonata VI which Nancy and I played with Greg and Alice Hayes, perhaps the finest 'Continuo' in New England. I dedicated this final concert to the Robinson and Pressman families who have been my major supporters in these endeavors over my many years in Amherst.

But there still remains another Zelenka Sonata to be played (III), and five more Handels, not to mention all of those Sellners. Perhaps my lifelong series of recitals will take root in my new environment and perhaps such concerts will reflect my study. Already I am musing over the possibility of performing an evening of music from Le Collection Philidor for an ensemble of Oboes and Bassoons...

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