FUMIAKI MIYAMOTO, principal oboist of the Essen Opera since September, 1974 made his London debut in a Wigmore Hall recital in May. The program included works of Bach, Schumann, Saint-Saens, and the Britten Metamorphoses.
ROBERT BLOOM and Charles Treger, violinist, were soloists in the Bach Double Concerto in C Minor with the Bach Aria Group, Jorge Mester conducting, at New York's Alice Tully Hall on October 22.
BERT LUCARELLI was soloist in the world premiere of John Corigliano's Oboe Concerto, part of the American Symphony Orchestra's first program of the 1975-76 season. Kazuyoshi Akiyama, the orchestra's music director, conducted the November 9 performance in New York's Carnegie Hall. Donal Henahan of the New York Times found the new concerto "an impressive work that the world's oboe players will want to add to their repertories. Mr. Corigliano indulges in a small orchestral in-joke at the outset, building a movement entitled "Tuning" on the oboe's middle A and all the open fifths, arpeggios and scalar doodling used in pre-concert warm-ups. Surprisingly, however, the composer made an absorbing piece out of such banalities. Two subsequent movements, "Song" and "Aria" offered Mr. Lucarelli chances to beguile with his pure tone and graceful way with a phrase, a "Scherzo" paired him in an extended duet with the percussion section, and the concluding "Rheita Dance" took off on the Arabic oboe with rhythmically infectious results."
HARRY SARGOUS, principal oboist of the Toronto Symphony, made his New York debut on November 8 at the Carnegie Recital Hall. His program included sonatas of Sammartini, Hindemith, JS Bach, and Saint-Saens, as well as the Schumann Romances and the New York premiere of John Lissauer's Phases for Oboe and Guitar (1970). He was assisted by Ruth Watson Henderson, pianist, and Gregory Bonenberger, guitarist. Peter G. Davis writing in the New York Times found Mr. Sargous "a fluent technician; his tone is full, true and sweet, and his elegant style brought every piece he played to musical life."
THOMAS STACY, the New York Philharmonic's English horn player and a faculty member of the Juilliard School presented a recital in the Juilliard Theater on February 11. The program included two premieres - Sydney Hodkinson's Trinity, commissioned by Mr. Stacy and written for three "treble instruments" plus optional glockenspiel, with the added option of three live players or one live and two on tape. Mr. Stacy played the trio with his "prerecorded selves . . . The piece itself moves from breathy clacking sounds to gentle chromaticism to a consoling, Arcadian finale that beautifully suggested the pastoral connotations of the English horn" according to John Rockwell of the New York Times. He found Vincent Persichetti's Parable XV, the other first performance of the evening "a little dry as a listening experience." The program also included Henri Tomasi's Evocations; Ton-That Tiet's Hy Vong 267 for English horn and harpsichord; Telemann's Sonata in C, originally for recorder; Ravel's Piece en forme de Habanera; and Hindemith's 1941 Sonata. Assisting artists included Gary Kirkpatrick, pianist; James Richman, harpsichordist, and Harold Goltzer, bassoonist. In an article in the New York Daily News headlined "An opening blast of English horn . . . ," Ron Eyer pointed out that this event could accurately be called the first such recital ever given in New York, one completely devoted to "this deep-throated, patrician member of the oboe family, bred to such luxuries as the famous Largo theme of Dvorak's New World Symphony."