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Type of Submission
Podium Presentation
Keywords
Oboe, history, musicology, hautbois
Proposal
The oboe has been a beloved and imperative member of the orchestra, but to find an oboist who develops a sound carefully and meticulously is not an easy task. Modern day oboists are required to develop a delicate but powerful sound. There is an abundance of variables that can change a player’s tone, let alone personal tastes and opinions of how the instrument should sound. With the full conservatory instruments used today, a wealth of emotions can be portrayed. Its sound can be delicate and sweet, full and mourning, as well as rich and haughty. There is no other instrument that can produce the pure, piercing tone of the oboe. Mimic, yes; however, those are poor facsimiles when compared to the actual oboe sound. Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart often wrote for the oboe in his orchestral, chamber, and solo works. It is clear in Mozart’s writing that the oboe of his time had similar or even the same mechanics as the oboe today. In fact, one look at his Concerto for Oboe and Orchestra in C Major, it is plain to see how advanced the oboe of Mozart’s time had been due to the technicality required not only of the player, but the instrument itself. Is our perception of the oboe’s sound parallel to the sound that Mozart had once required for his pieces? The oboe had developed throughout history because of the growing technical demands of instrumental music throughout the Middle Ages to the Classical Era.
Start Date
4-8-2020 1:00 PM
End Date
4-22-2020 6:00 PM
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 4.0 License.
On the Oboe: A Brief History of its Ancestry
The oboe has been a beloved and imperative member of the orchestra, but to find an oboist who develops a sound carefully and meticulously is not an easy task. Modern day oboists are required to develop a delicate but powerful sound. There is an abundance of variables that can change a player’s tone, let alone personal tastes and opinions of how the instrument should sound. With the full conservatory instruments used today, a wealth of emotions can be portrayed. Its sound can be delicate and sweet, full and mourning, as well as rich and haughty. There is no other instrument that can produce the pure, piercing tone of the oboe. Mimic, yes; however, those are poor facsimiles when compared to the actual oboe sound. Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart often wrote for the oboe in his orchestral, chamber, and solo works. It is clear in Mozart’s writing that the oboe of his time had similar or even the same mechanics as the oboe today. In fact, one look at his Concerto for Oboe and Orchestra in C Major, it is plain to see how advanced the oboe of Mozart’s time had been due to the technicality required not only of the player, but the instrument itself. Is our perception of the oboe’s sound parallel to the sound that Mozart had once required for his pieces? The oboe had developed throughout history because of the growing technical demands of instrumental music throughout the Middle Ages to the Classical Era.
