Oboes and "Oother Looud Muzik"

New Zealand Listener, Volume 22, Issue 552, 20 January 1950, Page 10

Oboes and "Oother Looud

Muzik"

ce HIS Pageaunt waz clozd up with a delectable harmony of Hautboiz Shalmz Cornets and such oother looud muzik," ‘says Robert Laneham describing : : an entertainment for Queen ‘beth in 1575 at Kenilworth Castle. The oboe, originally a "looud muzik" instrument, has travelled a long way from the days of Queen Elizabeth. The double cane reed was one of the oldest methods of making a musical sound for an instrument consisting of a pipe with a series of holes in it, and the double reed of the oboe is still one of the trickiest sound producing devices. "For forty years I have been blowing into it," said one great oboist, "and still I don’t know what is going to come.out." The oboist can play like an angel on a reed in the evening; the next morning he can pick up the same instrument for rehearsal, and sound like a peevish child. It may be the uncertainty of this kind of life which contributes to the orchestral tradition that oboists are "quger." I have heard much debate as to whether they become queer because of the effect their unreliable instrument has on them, or whether they have to be queer before taking up with such an ungrateful mistress. I suspect, however, that this tradition is on a par with the one held by woodwind players that the strings are conceited, or by strings that the woodwinds are soul-less. One thing the oboist must be, however, is nerveless. The string player can give a creditable performance when almost overcome by nerves, but the first tightening of the oboist’s lips upon the reed he holds between them will result in reducing his tone to a strangled snort. , For all its difficulties (not of execution, in which it is fairly easy) thé oboe seems an ideal instrument for recording and broadcasting. Its somewhat dry and incisive voice comes very clearly and purely over the air, I believe that this is due to the relative lack of overtones, compared, for example, with the violin. There are some splendid executants recording today, most of thém playing in the French tradition, more gentle and melancholy than the more incisive and harsher German method, But overshadowing all there is one great name-Leon Goossens, the greatest woodwind player now living. His mastery of tone colours is amazing, the exquisiteness of his phrasing a miracle. He is never less than superb, and has put his art on a number of recordings which are treasured by their ownérs. My favourite is that of the Mozart Oboe Quartet with three members of the Lener String Quartet. I have never liked the Lener’s playing: of Mozart because of what I think is their over-sentimental approach, but Goossens vitalises the strings. The little work is Mozart at his sunniest: it has an open-air feeling about it and the little tunes bubble from the oboe like sunbeams on a stream. It is

‘the d- 2 bub » DJ Pati > ela pelle \ade >) & fey) a work to love, and Goossens’s incomparable playing does it full justice. Now my reason for writing this is that recently a young woodwind player said to me that he had heard a recording of Goossens and had been so struck with it that he had bought it with one or two other examples of his playing and was studying them. And it reminded me that now the influence of a great player is world wide, thanks to the gramophone and the radio, This lad could get no tuition for his instrument, the clarinet, nor could he have got a teacher if he had wished to learn the oboe or the bassoon. This difficulty would be removed if the Broadcasting Service founded a training school for woodwind and brass players as a complementary. activity to the National Orchestra. The players of the Na‘tional Orchestra travel so much . that they. cannot teach. Whence are our future wind players in the National Orchestra to come? Must we always continue to send overseas for replacements? A symphony orchestra cannot be maintained in a country as small as New Zealand without making some provision for the training of local young people as potential replacements, for key wind

players in particular.

D.

M.