PERFORMANCES AND PERSONALITIES

Ronald Roseman presented a recital in December at the 92nd Street Y in New York, which included sonatas of Poulenc and Saint-Saëns. Also included were a Telemann sonata, Schumann's Three Romances, Op. 94, George Rochberg's "La Bocca delta Verita," and a keyboard sonata of Haydn played by Gilbert Kalish, Mr. Roseman's collaborator. Joseph Horowitz, writing in the New York Times referred to Mr. Roseman as one of New York's most admired orchestral and chamber musicians. "Both in terms of instrumental command and interpretive range, he is a remarkably satisfying player . . . Mr. Roseman's performances of both (the SaintSaens and the Poulenc) were superb."

Livio Caroli, an oboist from Italy now living in New York, made his solo debut at Carnegie Recital Hall in February. He has served as principal oboist with orchestras in Rome, Venice, and Milan, and is very active as a player and teacher in New York. Mr. Caroli was joined by some of his colleagues from the Caecilian Chamber Ensemble, and his program included the Ginastera Duo for Flute and Oboe (with John Wion), and the Hindemith Sonata. The program began with Donizetti's Sonata in F and ended with the Mozart Quartet, K. 370. It also included a world premiere - Walter Branchi's "Ma Chere Machine". Bernard Holland of the New York Times commented that listening to Mr. Branchi's piece "was a little like reading bars on a graph . . . a different kind of minimalism -- more geometric than hypnotic."

Philip West presented a recital in Alice Tully Hall, New York, in October, entitled "An Evening of English Music for the Oboe". It began with Britten's "Fantasy Quartet, Opus 2" for oboe and string trio and his "Six Metamorphoses after Ovid" for solo oboe, and included American premieres of his "Two Insect Pieces" (1935) and his "Temporal Variations" (1963), both for oboe and piano and both recently published. Andrew Porter was moved to write a short essay in The New Yorker on these important contributions to the repertoire which seems worth reprinting here. "The Insect Pieces -- the Grasshopper and the Wasp, are slight, brief scherzi, one hoppity-skippity, the other a thing of darting zigzag flights from the oboe and angry buzzing, now loud, now soft, from the piano, with a sting in the coda. Mr. West and his pianist, David Burge, treated them solemnly, steadily, and missed the fun. The graphic vividness of the final episode -- on the page the lines to track an increasingly infuriated wasp, homing at last on its target -- was given no correspondingly picturesque sound image. And that was surprising, for Mr. West and Mr. Burge are both known to be witty men. As I have had occasion to observe before, Puritan hangups persist in American "classical" music-making. Even the merriest men can turn sobersides when they put on the old soup-and-fish and step out in front of an audience. Oboists, I'm told, daren't smile; embouchure must determine the set of their lips. But surely their eyes can twinkle and their music can smile? . . . Would it be wrong to suggest that British music and therefore British executants -- or is it vice versa? -- are the most relaxed of any, least formal, the readiest to reach out to audiences and share enjoyment with them? Handel was British by choice and by adoption; most of his music was written for London: Mr. West and Mr. Burge played his G-Minor Sonata, and played its sparkling movements too earnestly. The Temporal Variations is a substantial, often entertaining composition -- theme, seven variations, and "resolution" -- lasting about fifteen minutes. Subtleties of motivic, harmonic, rhythmic, and textural transformation show Britten's innate command of musical science, and the piece also has charm and wit-more than were revealed by a prim, inhibited performance. Britten's almost Expressionist range of dynamics and accents were narrowed . . . The recital ended with Arthur Bliss's Oboe Quintet (1927), written, as the Fantasy Quartet was, for Leon Goossens. (Since one celebrated review of the composition began "Five oboes is an unusual combination", perhaps I should specify that there were four distinguished string players ....) Bliss's "absolute" music has its champions, but I, though I liked the man very much, am not among them.... The Oboe Quintet and its stronger successor the Clarinet Quintet now seem to say little, to do little, even in performances more freely romantic than that of Mr. West and his colleagues.... (He is) a player who is a master of his instrument, a scrupulous and dedicated musician, and an explorer of new repertory."

Another important premiere took place in New York in October, this one of Jon Deak's new concerto for oboe d'amore, part of the continuing series of concertos commissioned for principals of the New York Philharmonic. Jon Deak is assistant principal of the Philharmonic's double bass section. Nicholas Kenyon writing in the New Yorker describes the work in some detail.

The oboe d'amore soloist, representing a youth, inhabits a supposedly contemporary world of gangs, discos, automobile horns, police whistles, and big-city alienation. In the middle of all this, he experiences what Mr. Deak, in a program note, calls 'an ephemeral insight.'

Encouraged by a wise old man, he sets off toward a high mountain, and, in spite of the old man's warning that he will freeze to death, goes to the top; in the final bars of the piece, he realizes he will not survive. Mr. Deak's approach to portraying this in music is literal. Instruments represent things: we read of 'a river of woodwinds' and 'a vast ancient forest of contrabasses' and the 'sneers and ridicule' of 'passing violas and violins.' The old man is characterized by a solo cello, and he speaks as best a cello can; with sliding groans on the strings, the cello makes a series of noises that signify, apparently, the words 'What do you want?' The literal sound effects at first caused mirth among the Philharmonic audience but quickly made us feel at home -- for once, being in Avery Fisher Hall wasn't much different from being outside on Broadway and Sixty-fifth. The use of sound effects and of musical pseudospeech might be an imaginative touch, but in a sustained work -- The Fearsome Endeavour lasts twenty-seven minutes -- these effects must be placed in a firm framework. The basis of the piece was entirely programmatic; it had little independent musical logic. Fragments of cliche material-staccato figures for a chase, soft flutes and harps for the vision, quivering sul ponticello string for the cloud-capped mountain -- were patched together with no discernible harmonic planning; the chord progressions were awkward, the part-writing was naive. Thomas Stacy played the oboe d'amore part, including impressive cadenzas, brilliantly. Orchestra and audience gave Mr. Deak a warm reception."

William Bennett, assistant principal oboist of the San Francisco Symphony, gave his New York debut recital at Carnegie Recital Hall in February, 1980. Donal Henahan writing in the New York Times remarked that "young musicians of talent are often like colts let loose in springtime, so charged with energy and the desire to run that they have trouble remembering where they are headed. The playing of William Bennett had some such coltish appeal. Mr. Bennett seemed primarily intent on demonstrating his technical accomplishments, which were indeed impressive. His command of the instrument's coloratura possibilities was evident in an agile, if occasionally breathless and disjointed, race through Antonio Pasculli's Concerto on Themes from "La Favorita". Musically Mr. Bennett's performances were not nearly so arresting. In works by Bach, Schumann, and Sammartini, his playing was precise and intelligently phrased . . . but he showed little concern for distinctions of color and dynamics. Jonathan Shames, a late replacement for the scheduled pianist, also drove the music . . . Both musicians, at any rate, tended to keep the volume at mezzo-forte and above, which ruled out many musical subtleties. Still, it was obvious throughout that Mr. Bennett was a musician of present quality, as well as one of great potential. He gave dazzling performances of two new works, Maurice Wright's Sobolo, a first performance, and Mitchell Arnold's One Line for Solo Oboe (1979). Both proved to be extraordinarily demanding pieces, but Mr. Bennett handled them with little obvious strain. The Wright essay, the more conventional of the two, called for wild flights of 16th and 32d notes that put one in mind of Chopin at his most chromatic. The Arnold exploited repeated figures, rather in the manner of Steve Reich, and struck this listener as an interesting exercise in acoustics rather than a viable composition."

Roger Widder presented a recital at the University of Arkansas at Fayetteville on April 13, 1981, assisted by colleagues from the faculty of the university. His program included the Concertino for Oboe d'Amore of Donizetti, Marcel Mihalovici's Sonatina, Op. 13, Richard Wernick's Songs of Remembrance for mezzosoprano with shawm, English horn, and oboe, and the Poulenc Trio, in which William Ricker was the bassoonist.

Donald Baker, first oboist of the Detroit Symphony, was soloist in Mozart's Concerto, K. 374, in May, 1981, Antal Dorati conducting. John Guinn writing in the Detroit Free Press commented that Baker's performance

"could hardly be improved upon . . . his technique is secure. His breath control is solid. His phrasing is immaculate. His fingerwork is agile. His intonation is accurate. This really shouldn't be surprising. These things are to be expected from the principal oboist of a major orchestra like the Detroit Symphony. What distinguishes Baker's playing is the quality of artistry that results from the combination of these elements. That artistry is so refined, so mature, so intelligently used that it produces unfaltering satisfaction. Baker lavished his honeyed tone quality on Mozart's notes in great doses, yet he maintained an elegance well within the confines of the classical style. He used the cadenzas composed by John deLancie, former principal oboist of the Philadelphia Orchestra, and although they were filled with widely spaced leaps and rapid scales and arpeggios, they posed no problems. This was the third time Baker has performed the Mozart concerto with the DSO . . . It's time we heard his talents displayed in another work. The fascinating oboe concerto composed a few years ago by John Corigliano comes to mind. Baker's considerable talents seem readymade for its considerable delights."

Heinz Holliger, surely conceded to be the world 's greatest oboist, has appeared both with orchestra and in recital in the United States with welcome regularity in the current season. All of us U.S. oboists hope that this is the beginning of more and more appearances here by this legendary artist. Joseph Horowitz in the New York Times wrote of his October appearance at the Metropolitan Museum:

"If one were to analyze the riveting effect of Heinz Holliger's oboe playing . . . his spectacular instrumental prowess would be very much to the point. Thus, beyond the outstanding agility of his passagework and the consistency of his tone, Mr. Holliger employs an unusually flexible dynamic range and a varied gamut of attacks, both of which help him make his instrument sing and frolic. But it is more to the point, and no meager compliment, to suggest that Mr. Holliger, probably the world's most celebrated oboist, never draws attention to his purely technical abilities. Instead these are placed at the service of a vital, inquisitive musical intelligence. The result, on this occasion, was a performance of Haydn's Oboe Concerto in C that deservedly ignited the sort of ovation usually reserved for more heroic or flamboyant instrumental vehicles. Mr. Holliger, a balding, spectacled man whose presence is both gentle and intense, was also heard in Donizetti's Concertino in G (for English horn) and encores by Britten and Mozart, all irresistibly accounted for. The startling impact of the Haydn was partly due to the conductorless Orpheus Chamber Ensemble, whose playing was more alertly coordinated with the soloist than in most conducted concerto performances."

In an intriguing interview in February's Stereo Review, Mr. Holliger commented,

"The oboe is not a solo instrument in America, largely because the previous generation of American oboists conspired against it . . . They did not want to be soloists themselves and they did not want others to be. And they didn't know the repertoire. Two or three concertos, maybe, for auditions. That's all."

. . . Holliger, who performs concertos and chamber music on both oboe and English horn, knows the repertoire and is busy recording it, mostly for Phillips. "I have enough repertoire for three lifetimes" he says. Some of it he has written himself, some he has commissioned from contemporary composers . . . But most of it, he admits, stems from the seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries when wind instruments were in greatest favor. There is a large temporal gap between the baroque works and the contemporary, broken only by the Mozart concerto and quartet, the Richard Strauss concerto, and a few others. "I blame American oboists", says Holliger, "that there are no concertos by some of the great composers of our century. Bartok was here, starving. Prokofiev was here for a time. Schoenberg was here teaching harmony to beginning students. But no American oboist ever commissioned a work from them. They would have been happy to write one." Whomever one blames, the lack of concertos is a serious one. The repertoire needs big works, and one at least seems to have disappeared. "Beethoven wrote an oboe concerto, about the same time as the Second Piano Concerto. The Morgan Library in New York City has the sketches for it, but it once existed in full. Diabelli had a copy of it. But I have searched the world for it for ten years in vain."

A new trio consisting of Renee Siebert, flutist, Bert Lucarelli, oboist, and Judith Norell, harpsichordist, performed works of Bach, Mozart, Rameau, Leclair, and Alan Shawn in their debut at the Goodman Concert Hall in New York in February.

Franck Avril, of the University of Missouri at Kansas City, continues a very active career as recitalist and soloist with orchestra. He is the first oboist to have been chosen to join the roster of Young Concert Artists in New York, joining other distinguished woodwind soloists as Paula Robison, Eugenia Zukerman, and Marya Martin, all flutists, and others such as pianists Emanuel Ax, Ruth Laredo, Murray Perahia, and Richard Goode. . . . surely an impressive company! Mr. Avril has also won the bronze medal at the Geneva Competition in 1977, and presented a Carnegie Recital Hall debut program in the same year. His current engagements take him to Seattle, San Diego, Flagstaff, Freeport in the Bahamas, Birmingham, and West Palm Beach.

Jean Northrup presented a faculty recital at Millikin University, Decatur, Illinois, on February 22, 1981, assisted by the Cremona Consort. Her program of music for English horn and strings included Flax and Charlock, Op. 21 (Fantasie Quartet) by Ruth Gipps, the Mozart Adagio, K 580a, and the Francaix 1971 Quartet.

Table of Contents