The Oboe: A Short History
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1. French baroque oboe. |
There is a persistent rumour that suggests most oboists go insane or die of brain tumours at an early age, due to the physical pressure exerted on the body while playing the instrument. Speaking as an oboist myself, perhaps we are all mad in the first place to take up an instrument that makes such stern demands – along with the never-ending and frustrating task of reed-making!
Like the bassoon, the oboe is a double-reed instrument, meaning that the sound
is produced by the vibrations of two blades of cane (rather than just one, as
with the clarinet and saxophone). Today, the oboe is made of hard wood, with a
complex system of silvery key work, enabling its 22 tone holes to be controlled
by eight fingers and one thumb. It is made in three pieces with a narrow conical
bore, and has a wide range from the B flat below middle C to the A three octaves
above.
Invention
It is difficult for historians to date the invention of the oboe, since its French name “hautbois”, meaning high or powerful wood, was used to denote any small, double-reed instrument until quite late in the seventeenth century. However, it was probably Jean Hotteteree I who, in conjunction with Michel Philidor, developed what we recognise as the oboe a few years before 1660. These two instrument makers and wind players were members of famous families of musicians working at the opulent court of King Louis XIV. France remains a centre of innovation for oboe manufacture.
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2. Oboe da caccia. |
Essentially, the oboe is a refined version of the chanter of the musette, or French bagpipes. The first oboes were constructed from boxwood and in three parts, enabling the maker to finish the bore and tone holes with great precision. There were two double holes and keys for E flat and C. The oboe reed was controlled directly by the lips, instead of simply having the air forced through it as in the musette, allowing for great subtleties in sound production.
The oboe was immediately taken up by the wind players of the French court. It
can be found as early as 1657 in Lully’s ballet L’amour Malade:
Robert Cambert’s
opera Pomone (1671) is often quoted as the first use of the oboe as an
orchestral instrument. In 1674, when Cambert travelled to England to supervise a
production of the masque Calisto by John Crowe and Nicholas Staggins, he took
with him several notable French oboists, and the ‘hoboy’ quickly gained
popularity in England. From 1690 onwards, Purcell regularly employed the oboe in
his larger works, and it was in fact in London that the first known printed
tutor for the oboe was published in 1695 in The Sprightly Companion..
Baroque
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3. Baroque oboe. |
From the beginning of the eighteenth century a pair of oboes was commonly
employed in orchestras along with two horns, forming the basis for the classical
wind section.
The oboe was first used simply to double the upper strings for timbral purposes, but it was increasingly used as a solo voice, a development
that can be traced through the symphonies of Haydn, Mozart and then Beethoven.
Meanwhile, the larger oboes (such as the d’amore and taille) were used in the
Harmoniemusik and wind ensemble of the European courts.
The baroque period was certainly the golden era for the oboe, and every court and noble household throughout Europe employed a pair of oboes as its primary wind players. Bach’s extensive use of the instrument as well as its larger counterparts the oboe d’amore (picture 4) and the oboe da caccia (picture 2) has perhaps never been surpassed.
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4. Oboe d’amore. |
Classical
The baroque oboe was such a beautifully constructed and well-balanced instrument
that few modifications were made to it for almost a century. Other than a
narrowing of the bore, walls and reed during the latter half of the 1700’s – in
order to create a more brilliant timbre (a trend that is in fact seen in all
instruments of this time) – the oboe remained unchanged until around 1800.
During the ninteenth century, oboe developments included a ‘slur’ key, now used
as an ‘octave’ key to stabilise the upper register, and various other keys to
create a more even tone colour and to extend the range.
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5. Two-keyed classical oboe. |
Opposition to these
additions to the oboe was strong, and in 1823 the oboe virtuoso Wilhelm Johann
Braun (1796-1867) proclaimed, “
Too
many keys would seem to impair the tone: and they have the added disadvantage
that if they are imperfectly made one soon finds that one or the other does not
cover the holes properly. The advantages do not outweigh the attendant
disadvantages.” Even in the later years of Beethoven’s life, many two-keyed
oboes were still in use.
Romantic
Also in the nineteenth century, oboes began to be made from harder woods such as ebony and grenadilla, since the soft European boxwood could not take the weight of the key work. Boxwood is an extremely unstable material that never stops moving – surviving boxwood instruments from this period are today often unplayable, as the tone holes no longer line up with the key work.
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6. Seven-keyed classical oboe. |
Keys were slowly but inconsistently added. It is only during the last 100 years
that the oboe’s mechanism has become standardised. There is one startling
exception to this rule, seen in the Viennese school of playing.
This small but
significant group of players are today still using essentially the same 13-keyed
oboe for which Josef Sellner wrote his tutor in 1825.
The oboe suffered from a lack of solo repertoire during the nineteenth century as the virtuosic capabilities of the violin and piano became almost exclusively popular. However, it still held a prominent position in the symphonic repertoire (particularly in the works of Brahms, Mahler, Wagner and Bruckner), and its relative, the cor anglais (pitched a fifth lower than the oboe like the da caccias and tailles of the baroque era) also became an important orchestral timbre.
Modern
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7. Modern oboe. |
In the twentieth century, the solo oboe made a comeback in the hands of such
experts as Leon Goossens, Pierre Pierlot, Lothar Koch and Heinz Holliger.
Holliger studied both oboe and composition with Pierre Pierlot and Peirre Boulez
respectively, and his combination of skills resulted not only in hitherto
unthought-of brilliance of performance, but also in new playing techniques.
His
influence has inspired composers such as Luciano Berio, Ernst Krenek, Henri
Pousseur, Andre Jolivet, Krzyszof Penderecki and Hans Werner Henze to write for
the oboe.
The fluctuating fortunes of the oboe, which has been frivolously described as “an ill wind that no one blows any good” but which also moved Telemann “on many an occasion in a manner inexpressible” seem to again be on the rise. Once more, composers are recognising the expressive capabilities of the oboe, and drawing inspiration from its tones.