On March 5, 1983, our oboe class at the School of Music of the University of Washington presented the complete Solos de Concours of Charles Colin. Announced as a "Colossal Colin Concert," the program included the eight concours solos and the Grande Fantaisie Concertante played by the following performers:
While the "First Solo" has enjoyed a certain popularity throughout the years, my students welcomed the opportunity to become acquainted with all the other Colin works.
Charles Colin occupied an interesting place in the imposing line of 19th century oboe professors at the Paris Conservatory. He was born in Cherbourg on June 2, 1832 and received his Premier Prix at the age of twenty in 1852. He was the last student of Gustave Vogt to take over the oboe chair, and can thus be regarded as a link to the earlier group of Vogt pupils who held this post; Stanislas Verroust, Charles-Louis Triébert and Félix-Charles Berthélemy.
The extent to which Vogt's influence reaches to our own day is even more evident when we consider the contributions, both in the area of instrument design and in the writing of method books, of two of his other early disciples, Henri Brod and Apollon Marie-Rose Barret.
That Charles Colin's position in this brilliant oboistic line was a pivotal one, is made clear by the fact that he was at the same time the final Vogt pupil to become an oboe professor at the Paris Conservatory and that he was the teacher under whose guidance, Georges Gillet, the oboist destined to lead the French school of oboe playing for the next fifty years, was granted his Premier Prix. Indeed, it was immediately after Colin became professor at the Conservatory in 1868, that he wrote his first Solo de Concours, the work which Georges Gillet played to receive his 2e Prix. A year later, in 1869, it was with Colin's Solo No. 2 that Gillet won his Premier Prix at the age of fifteen.
In writing his own solos to be played in the annual concours, Colin was following in the tradition of the professors who preceded him. However, Colin's accomplishments differed somewhat from those of his fellow oboists, in that he had earned honors in many other subjects, including organ, harmony and accompaniment, counterpoint and fugue, and finally in 1857, he won the prestigious 2e Prix de Rome for composition. Other awards were conferred on Colin during his brief but distinguished career. In 1877 he received the title, Officier de L'Academie, and shortly before his untimely and sudden death on July 26, 1881 at the age of forty-nine, he became Chevalier of the Légion d'honneur. In a memorial speech lauding Colin's accomplishments, Edmond Turquet referred to the fact that Colin was stricken in the middle of the public concours, and that desolate at the idea of abandoning his pupils, his last thought was for them.
Perhaps due to Colin's expertise and extended compositional studies, his works found a fairly permanent place in the late 19th-century oboe repertoire. After Georges Gillet became professor in 1881, he frequently employed the Colin solos for the concours. Some of his famous students who played these works to earn their Premier Prix were Georges Longy, with No. 7 in F Major in 1886, Alfred Barthel with No. 6 in G minor in 1891, and Bridet and Bleuzet, with the same G minor solo in 1893. Although the Grande Fantaisie was not used as a concours piece, it was often played in the other examinations notably by Marcel Tabuteau in June 1904. Gillet continued to require the Colin solos for the concours until 1895 and for the intermediate examinations until well into the early part of the 20th century. However, from the mid-1880's on, he turned more and more to other composers; Guilhaud, Lefebvre, Comtesse de Grandval, Paladilhe, Guy Ropartz, Diémer, Büsser and once even Handel (!), thus becoming the first oboe professor at the Paris Conservatory to break with the tradition of writing his own concours solos.
What can we learn today by looking again at these solos so typical of their period of a little over a hundred years ago? While not making the most extreme technical demands on the performer, they do require a certain dash and flair in the execution of the frequent short cadenzas, many trills, and concluding più mosso sections. Each solo either begins with an Allegro, proceeding without break to a slow section, often reminiscent of an operatic cavatina, and ends with a fast movement sometimes in Polonaise rhythm, or begins with a slow introductory melodic section, going on to a moderate Allegro and ending with a then still livelier finale.
The solos are all approximately six or seven minutes long; the key signatures seldom exceed two flats or sharps and the top range does not go above a high F. These are therefore compositions that in one way are easy for today's students to approach. At the same time they present a challenge in style; to express the simple charm and lyricism of the melodic sections, to find the most effective pacing for the cadenzas, and to bring each piece to its conclusion in true virtuoso manner, not depending on speed alone, but with polish and brilliance.
We can be grateful that a certain attitude of austerity in musical taste that prevailed some thirty years ago and tended to look down on all but the most august musical creations of the 19th century, has now lifted, allowing us to enjoy the products of all periods and persons--even and including, those of Charles Colin.
(Editor's Note: Miss Storch advises that following the "colossal Colin concert " a "cold collation" was served. The menu included cheese, crackers, carrots, celery, cucumbers, caviar, cranapple juice, cherry cup cakes and chocolate chip cookies. To this masterpiece of alliterative refreshment I would only add champagne--and cognac with the coffee.)