Editors Note: This profile of Evelyn Barbirolli appears shortly after the completion of her successful Canadian tour with the Duo Barbirolli. The duo appeared in cities all across the country, including Vancouver, Edmonton, Saskatoon, Hamilton, and Halifax. Lady Barbirolli returns to Canada in August when she will be the featured guest of the 1976 meeting of the IDRS in Toronto. This article first appeared in the Spring, 1973 issue of the NACWPI Journal; it is reprinted here with the kind permission of the Journal's editor and the author.
It is possible to teach some wind instruments with little more than a working knowledge of them but others cannot be taught efficaciously without the guidance of a good tutor. I suppose I am a witness to this because my first oboe teacher was an excellent musician, clarinetist, and teacher. He taught me music soundly and well, and he was effective because of his intelligence and sensitivity. However, intelligence and sensitivity on the part of the teacher cannot help an oboe student unless it is combined with a thorough knowledge of the oboe.
From this experience it seems to me that the teacher who must teach most, if not all, of the woodwind instruments in a small college situation, may find his teaching of the double reeds (the oboe specifically) quite ineffective unless he is well acquainted with the instrument and its problems. There are a few who have a flair for the oboe who can do a good job of teaching it with scanty knowledge, but for most of us a very sound basic knowledge garnered from a good teacher is essential.
No one should attempt to teach the oboe without some understanding of the instrument, but even the relatively unskilled oboe performer should be able to do a more effective teaching job with the aid of Evelyn Barbirolli's new book, The Oboist's Companion, published by the Oxford University Press. This book is the most definitive on the instrument that I have seen and I will be making more comments on it later in this article.
For over twenty years I got my knowledge of the oboe in bits and pieces. I acquired all the articles and books on the instrument available and I studied for short periods of time with different teachers, but it was not until last fall that I would, for the first time, not be pressed for advanced degree study and that I would have, for the first time, the opportunity to study what I wished, with whom I pleased.
It was this realization which led me to Lady Evelyn Barbirolli (nee Evelyn Rothwell) upon my arrival in England last fall. I believed that an opportunity to study in the glorious English oboe tradition would answer some questions which I had been concerned about for many years. Lady Barbirolli's reputation as a teacher-performer is solid because of her concerts, recordings, and publications. Her Oboe Technique, first published in 1952, had impressed me a great deal because her writing style pinpointed reed and performance problems succinctly but thoroughly. Her Book of Scales, published by the Oxford University Press, was to me pedagogically very sound and her Bach and Orchestral studies, published by Boosey and Hawkes, had been well received.
Evelyn Rothwell was born in England near Oxford and she received her early education at Downe House, a public school near Newbury in Berkshire. She began attending this school partly because the headmistress was a close friend of her mother's but also because the school had a fine reputation for music. Her music activities at the school consisted of playing the piano and singing in the choir and when an oboe player was needed in the school orchestra, young Evelyn, because of her keyboard experience and sensitive ear, was chosen by the director to learn the instrument. Her first instrument was an old Besson oboe, "An appalling instrument," she said. Her first teacher, as with others of us, was not a professional oboist and was unable to give her much more assistance beyond the initial instructions for blowing the instrument. She was forced, with the aid of the old Langey Tutor and her own devices (which included playing, as she put it, "All the music I could lay my hands on - piano, voice, violin music . . . anything.") to learn the instrument as best she could until her attendance at the Royal College of Music. At this time her oboe playing career began in earnest- she obtained a good Louis oboe and began studying with the eminent English oboist, Leon Goossens. Goossens excelled in coaching and did much teaching by example. "He always began his lessons with a slow scale which he accompanied charmingly on the piano," she said. Study material? "We worked on the Luft studies and eventually Gillet."
It was not long until she was deputizing for Leon Goossens in musical shows and entr'acte jobs but her first professional "break" came when she was appointed a member of the Covent Garden opera touring orchestra. This group toured twice a year in a six to eight week season and its music director was John Barbirolli who was later made permanent conductor of the Scottish National Orchestra. When Barbirolli accepted this position, he appointed the young Evelyn Rothwell as solo oboist of the orchestra. She was also solo and principal oboe of the Glyndebourne opera orchestra during the summers of 1934-39 and she was principal in the Sadler Wells Theatre orchestra in 1937 and 1938. She was a member of the London Symphony Orchestra for five years until her marriage to John Barbirolli in 1939. In 1939 Barbirolli was the permanent conductor of the New York Philharmonic Orchestra and Mrs. Barbirolli now assumed the many varied and extra-musical duties that conductor's wives over the world have always had to assume. Because of social obligations (as the wife of the conductor of what many believe to be the most glamorous but also the toughest conducting assignment in the world) she stopped playing until 1943 when the couple came back to England where John was to reorganize the famous Halle Orchestra. At first Mrs. Barbirolli became even more involved than she was in New York for she now assumed the duties of secretary to Barbirolli who conducted as many as 270 concerts a year with the Manchester group. She gradually began playing in 1944 as soloist with various chamber music groups and soon developed a full professional career. This was interrupted only a few years before her husband's death in 1970 when traveling commitments with him left little time for concertizing.
Currently, her calendar is jammed; in January, 1972, she was in the United States on a concert tour and in February she was in Scotland giving a series of recitals. She makes about fifteen solo appearances a month in Great Britain and she is also involved as a trustee to the Sir John Barbirolli Memorial Fund. Furthermore, she edits and arranges music and, beginning with the fall term of 1971, she was appointed a professor of oboe at the Royal Academy of Music. In addition, she somehow finds time to give private oboe lessons at her home in northwest London.
I was fortunate enough to be accepted as one of these private students and, as I knocked at her door for the first lesson, I wondered what this first lesson would include. From her letters I believed her to be a warm, open-hearted person and I looked forward to meeting her. At the same time, I was curious as to what she would find in my playing that would assume a priority in correcting. I knew what I believed to be my weak points, breathing and reeds. I supposed these problems to be the most obstinate for oboists; yet it was going to be interesting to hear what her first comments were. I did not have long to wait; after I had played one phrase, her eye caught an incorrect hand position and her eye and ear caught what appeared to her to be an unoboistic breathing pattern. It was apparent that I was breathing too shallowly and that this had to be improved. Breathing exercises began on the spot and I spent a good deal of time on the floor of her study trying to run the breath down to my heels. After the second or third lesson she heard me falter on a phrase and she asked to see my oboe reed. One look was enough . . . "We'll have to do something about your reeds," was the comment.
I had been waiting for a criticism of my reeds and looked forward to working on this aspect of oboe study with her for her experiences with oboe reeds paralleled mine to some extent. My first reeds were commercial ones and I went from these to a Tabuteau scrape which was taught to me by a Tabuteau disciple who insisted on his students using this kind of reed. A true Tabuteau scrape is as hard to blow as a four ply veneered board; it is exhausting and allows for little of the bravura style of playing. From this extreme I became acquainted with the kind of reed Leon Goossens uses. This reed is so light that the resistance is practically non-existent. Lady Barbirolli's reeds are a modified Tabuteau scrape and I was interested to know how she came about using a reed so different from the ones used by her former teacher.
It was over a leisurely lunch in an Italian restaurant that I was introduced to a subject in which she has almost a fierce interest. Fierce because she believes that young beginning oboists could have a much better time of it if the problems of obtaining suitable cane were not so great and if the teaching were more thorough on the subject. As an embryo oboe student, young Evelyn was not involved with the reed making process, for one man, a Thomas Brearley of Liverpool, for over forty years made reeds for both students and professionals in England and, until he died in the 1940's, there was no attempt in the country to concern young oboists with reed making. This created a void which Lady Barbirolli believes is still affecting the English oboe player. "While we were young, we were guaranteed good reeds by Brearley; with his death the younger players were forced to make their own reeds sometimes without much success." Even Leon Goossens had ceased to make reeds back in the 1920's because he received reeds from admirers all over the world.
Lady Barbirolli's reed problem continued to be of concern to her until the American, Whitney Tustin, came to the British Isles on a Fulbright scholarship. At this time he found time to give her some reed making lessons and later, Ray Weaver of the Houston Symphony Orchestra introduced her to the Tabuteau scrape which she later modified to suit her own requirements. She admits today that she resents the time taken in making reeds and, as a result, she has an interest in finding and working with some kind of a product, a resin, anything which could be controlled and which would have consistency and endurance of a greater degree than the natural fiber. Almost one-third of the second volume of her new book is devoted to the reed making problem
There are many things which can make an instruction book for a musical instrument valuable and after spending some time looking at the proofs of The Oboist's Companion, I am sure that this book has just about all of them. In the first place, the author has consulted with many excellent oboists in England, the Scandinavian countries, and the United States. Among these are Raymond Weaver, Michael Winfield, Kari Johnson, Natalie James, Janet Craxton, and Michael Dobson. This remarkably thorough book is in three volumes with each volume separated into individual lessons; Volume I, for example, is broken into twenty separate lessons, Volume II is concerned with reed making for the intermediate student and also with the fingering of notes into the altissimo register to G3 (top G). Volume III, when completed, will be for the advanced and young professional oboist and will contain sections on stages of reed making not covered in Volume II plus general advice on reeds, fingering charts for the notes above the top G with advice, exercises and studies for the problems which confront oboists as they progress to the more advanced stages. The writer has developed a clear and comprehensive reference system which will make all volumes easy for the reader to use. Each volume will be published separately but the book was planned as a complete work with lessons and instructions continuing directly from one volume to the next. This makes an excellent format for those oboists who do not have the opportunity for more than occasional lessons with the professional player and teacher and-for those students who have no contact at all with a bona fide oboist. Volumes I and II will be available during the fall of 1972 and Volume III will be published at a later date.
My lessons with Lady Barbirolli made it apparent that she is, herself, a "companion to oboists." The sessions were seldom less than three hours in length and they were completely enjoyable. I had the benefit of her prodigious knowledge in all aspects of the art of oboe playing and this, coupled with a warm and pleasant personality made this particular learning experience unique. Her book has the same ingredients; it is sincerely written; it has a wealth of knowledge generously given, and, running through the pages is the friendly warmth of the author's nature. There is no such thing as jealously guarding information concerning oboe performance problems. If Lady Barbirolli has a solution, she is happy to share it with anyone who is interested.
Evelyn Barbirolli has been recording on various record labels since 1934 and one of her earliest recordings is a 78 r.p.m. recording of the J.S. Bach Brandenburg Concerto No. 2 with Adolf Busch and the Busch Chamber Orchestra/ This particular recording has been transferred to the Long Play Historical Records division of E.M.I. (E.M.I. is the record conglomerate in England; full title being "Electric and Musical Industries Limited" of Hayes, Middlesex). Many of her recordings are available on American labels also and a list of her more recent long play records is given below:
(The Pye recordings are in a special Connoisseur Series)
Jerold A. Sundet spent a year studying in London with Leon Goossens and Lady Evelyn Barbirolli. He has also been a conducting student of Dr. Hans Swarowsky, former director of the Vienna Philharmonic and head of the conducting classes at the Vienna Academy.
Dr. Sundet is currently on the faculty of the music division of Minot State College where he teaches music history and woodwinds. He has also been the Music Director of the Minot Symphony Orchestra during the past five years. He has acted in the capacity of clinician and judge in several states in the midwestern and western portion of the United States.