Mozart and the Oboe - Woodwinds I Resource File
Transcription
Mozart and the Oboe - Woodwinds I Resource File
Mozart and the Oboe Author(s): Bruce Haynes Source: Early Music, Vol. 20, No. 1, Performing Mozart's Music II (Feb., 1992), pp. 4350+53+55-57+59-63 Published by: Oxford University Press Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/3127668 . Accessed: 08/12/2013 16:48 Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at . http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp . JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected]. . Oxford University Press is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to Early Music. http://www.jstor.org This content downloaded from 216.87.207.2 on Sun, 8 Dec 2013 16:48:42 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions Bruce Haynes Mozart and the oboe ::x Anon, Portraitof Sante Aguilar(1757).Oil painting. (Bologna,LiceoMusicale,SalaBossi) 1 Although the Classicaloboe looks at first sight like a Baroqueoboe, its smallerbore and tone-holes represent a sharp break with the past. Like the harpsichord,the Baroqueoboe representsthe end of an era,the culmination of many yearsof development.The Classicaloboe, on the other hand, is innovativeand experimentallike the fortepiano;few periods in the oboe's history have seen changeas radicalin such a short spaceof time. And it is from the Classicalinstrument,not the Baroqueone, that the model of oboe currentlyplayed in symphony orchestras (the A6 'Conservatoire'Lor e) ultimately derives.Tobe sure,the 'Lor e oboe"is a differentinstrument from its Classicalancestor.But the differencesare the sum total of small changesratherthan a revisionof basicprinciple.The Lor e is the outcome of more than a century of incremental additions of keys and small adjustments to the narrow Classical bore and tone-holes. For the player,the difference in feel and response between the oboes of Bachand Mozartis much greater than that between the two most common Baroque types-the oboe and the oboe d'amorea 3rdbelow it. In character,the Classicaloboe hasbeen 'tamed'-gone are the wild excesses and the effort to avoid saying 'too much'thataretypicalof the Baroqueinstrument.Partof this meekness is a question of dynamics:the Classical oboe is softer,especiallyin the upperregister.The tone is also narrowerand more focused.It is an instrumentthat cannot be masteredby the casualplayer.It is extremely sensitiveto intonation correctionsand requiresa more refineduse of fingeringtechnique.While it flourishedin a period in which the upper range was significantly extendedand upwardslursbecame more general,it did not yet possess that characteristicfeature of the 20thcenturyoboe, octave speakerkeys. The earliestdefinitiveformof the oboe (dependingon how you define what an oboe is) had existed for only about 70 yearswhen Mozartwas born.2By contrast,the modern Loreeoboe is already115yearsold. (Again,this parallelsthe historyof the developmentof the piano.)3 The pace of changewas clearlymuch quickerin the 18th century.Surelyone reason instrumentsare more stable now is thattheirrepertoryis canonized:we playthe same pieces over and over again (even the same 18th-century pieces, like the BrandenburgConcertos and the 'Four Seasons'),whereas music then was always'contemporary'and had the same obligation to be forever innovative that popular music has today. No wonder,then, that JosefHaydnwrotein 1766 to his employer, Prince Esterhizy, that his oboes needed replacementand no longer possessedthe proper pitch. He requesteda pair of new 'durablehautboi with an extrajoint for each one (in order that all the necessary pitches can be played)', and mentioned a maker in ViennanamedRockoBauer,who in his opinion was 'the 'S14 most skilful in such things. Classicalmusic presentednew demandsto oboe players and makers.Comparedto the earlierpartof the century,the tonalitiesused in oboe solos changedverylittle,5 but the tessiturawent higher and the upper range was EARLY MUSIC This content downloaded from 216.87.207.2 on Sun, 8 Dec 2013 16:48:42 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions FEBRUARY 1992 43 MUSIQUE CONSMSUPRIEURDE LYON 3, QUAI CHAUVEAU 69009 LYON Conservatoire National Sup6rieur de Musique de Lyon D6partement de Musique Ancienne Service 120-3, quai Chauveau-F 69266 LYONCEDEX09 T61.72.19.26.26 Telecopie 72.19.26.00 EARLYMUSIC DEPARTMENT ... under the direction of Gerard GEAY Short course - 2 years Long course - from 3 to 5 years MEDIEVAL MUSIC Direction: Dominique VELLARD Marie-Noel COLETTE- paleography Gerard GEAY- early counterpoint Sigrid LEE - fiddles Dominique VELLARD- monophony and polyphony Robert-Crawford YOUNG - lutes RENAISSANCE AND BAROQUE MUSIC Jean-Pierre CANIHAC- cornett and baroque trumpet Eug&neFERRE- lutes and ensemble G&rardGEAY- counterpoint and harmony Francoise LENGELLE- thorough-bass/ baroque ensemble Marianne MULLER- viols and ensemble Sophie ROUSSEAU - renaissance dance VOICESDEPARTMENT Under the direction ofJohn ELWES Jacqueline BONNARDOT - voice Laure FLORENTIN - voice Marie-ClaudeVALLIN- vocal polyphony ENTRANCEEXAMINATION-JULY1992 CANDIDATESMUST REGISTER BEFOREMAY1992 44 EARLY MUSIC FEBRUARY LouisCarrogisde Carmontelle(1717-1806), Quatuor:Prover, Duport, Vachonet Rodolphe. Oil painting. (Chantilly, 2 Mus6eCond6) extended; Mozart'sOboe Quartet, for instance, has a mean rangealmost six semitones-a 4th-higher than Bach'saveragefor oboe obbligatos.6 Illus.i is a portraitmade in 1767of the leading oboe player in Bologna at the time, Sante Aguilar (c.1734-18o8), for whom Mozart probably wrote a min- uet threeyearslater,in 1770 (K122). The stampon Aguilar's oboe is illegible, but the instrument strongly resemblescontemporaryoboes by the Dresden maker Jacob Grundmann (1729-18oo00), one of the best known makers of his day. (The additionalkeys that were frequently later added to his instrumentsshow that they were also popular for at least a generation after his death.)7Oboes similar to those of Grundmann were made in Italyand France(notablyby the makersChrisDelusse and Carlo Palanca (fl.1781-9) and the modern Viennese oboe resembles (c.1700-83)),' tophe them in profile.Grundmannbeganthe unusualpractice of regularlydating his oboes. Forty of his dated oboes 1992 This content downloaded from 216.87.207.2 on Sun, 8 Dec 2013 16:48:42 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions . ........ ? • •I! :_ •i,•: ri :?!i:•ia • ••MEMBER&• •ii desFurstenKrafftErnstzu Oettingen(c.1791). Silhouetteon gilt.ThecomposerAntonRosettiis playing 3 Anon.,Tafelmusik bass.(Maihingen, Bibliothek) Firstlich-Oettingen-Wallersteinschen have survived,spanninga period from 1768to 18oo.9 By studyingthem it is possible to tracethe developmentof good, standardoboes during Mozart'slifetime practicallyby the year.Grundmann'sstyleshows a clearmutation during his career (especiallyin the bell flare and centresocketshape),and his practiceof datinghis oboes means that instrumentscan be accuratelymatched to specific pieces, since an oboe built in the late 1760s or early1770s,for instance,may not be appropriatefor the Mozart Oboe Quartetwritten in 1781, although it will probablyworkwell for the Oboe Concerto.'0Illus.4and 5 show two representativeinstruments,dated respect- known were Johann Christian Fischer (1733-18oo), Gioseffo Secchi (fl.1755-84),'4 and the family friends Giuseppe Ferlendis (1755-181o)'" and Joseph Fiala (1749/5o-1816).'6 But the only player who was able to inspirea number of oboe solos from Mozart'spen was Friedrich Ramm (?c.1744-1813). Ramm was one of the elite playersof the illustrious orchestraat Mannheim.Mozartmet him there in 1777, and was immediatelyimpressed.'7Ramm, for his part, enthusiasticallyadopted Mozart's recently composed Oboe Concerto in C, K271k,originallywritten for Ferlendis.'8In the ensuing four yearsMozartwrote several and with both added solos for Ramm,'9of which the best known is Kv370/ 1784, ively 1774 keys." Mozartwrote six solos and four chamberworkswith 368b,the 'Oboe Quartet'(the fashionablenew solo form prominent parts for the oboe, and there are also a few which, by the 1770shad virtually replaced the sonata beautiful obbligatos with voice, and solos in wind with continuo).2' The singularityof this sparkling,ethensembles.His firstoboe solo was writtenwhen he was erealquartet(writtenin 1781,when Mozartwas just 25) 12, in 1768,1"the last in 1791, the year of his death.'3Of the lies in its exceptionaluse of high notes;he wrote nothing numerous oboists with whom he worked, the best else that resembledit in this respect,before or after. EARLY MUSIC This content downloaded from 216.87.207.2 on Sun, 8 Dec 2013 16:48:42 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions FEBRUARY 1992 45 4 Oboe by Jacob FriedrichGrundmann, 5 Oboe by Jacob FriedrichGrundmann, dated 1774 (Berlin, Musikinstrumenten- dated1784(Vermillion,SD, Shrineto Music museum des StaatlichenInstituts fir Mus- Museum, no.3996) ikforschung, Preussischer Kulturbesitz, no.100oo5) 46 EARLY MUSIC FEBRUARY 1992 This content downloaded from 216.87.207.2 on Sun, 8 Dec 2013 16:48:42 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions Two years earlier,in 1779,Mozart had taken Ramm's solo part to the remarkableopera scena 'Popoli di Tessaglia',K316, no higher than d"', though the virtuoso voice part flies up to high g"'.* This piece may have inspiredRamm to extend his high register,and Mozart consequentlyto exploit e"'",e"' and f" in the Quartet. The use of these notes obviously restrictedthe number of playerswho could have attemptedthe piece, and may have made it Ramm'sexclusivepropertyfor a considerable time. (It was not published until 20 years after its composition, in 18oi.) That these notes were written especiallyfor Rammis indicatedby the fact that Mozart neverwent higherthan e"'"(and rarelyabove d"')in his subsequentworks for oboe." The range Mozart gave for the oboe in Thomas Attwood's notes of 1785-6(p.156)was c'-c"'. High f'" first appearsin oboe fingeringchartsin 1792.23 One of Fiala's oboe concertos24uses f", as does a concerto by Anton Rosetti." By about 18oo there are reports of the use of The oboist W. T. Parke, in his Musical Memoirs g,.26 (1830)writesof one of his performancesin the 1790s,'in which I introduced some of my newly discoveredhigh notes, (up to G in alto,) particularlya shakeon the upper D, whichwas greatlyapplauded'(i, p.215). As we shallsee below, all these examples appear to be for oboes with only two keys. Mozarthad met and heard JohannChristianFischer (perhapsthe most celebratedoboist of his day) as a boy of nine years, in the Hague. Some years later he wrote some popular keyboard variations27to the Rondo of Fischer'sbest-known oboe concerto. But it seems that Fischer'slatervisit to Vienna in 1787did not inspire any oboe solos from Mozart.The two men met at that time (together with Ramm), and Mozart even went to hear Fischerplay some of his concertos,but this time he was not impressed,as he wrote at length to his father.28 In Vienna in the 1780s Mozart developed a special affinity for the clarinet, starting with the 'Kegelstatt' Trio,K498 (1786), writtenfor Anton Stadler.29 By the end of Mozart'slife (in contrast to the situation in Bach's day) the clarinetwas on at leastan equalfooting with the oboe. Its rapid rise, in the amazinglyshort space of a generation,is testimonyto the experimentalspiritof the age. It is also the single most importantdevelopmentin the history of Classicalwoodwinds. The clarinetwas originallya doubling instrumentfor oboists, and in the late 18th and early 19th centuries it gradually supplanted many of the oboe's traditional functions.30 The Attwood notes contain Mozart'scomment that: 'The clarinett is very useful instead of the oboes',implyingits role as an alternativepossibility.The clarinet functioned well in flat keys and sometimes replacedthe oboe for this reason.31The quartetof 1781 was the crest of his oboe writing; his important solos (K314, K316 and K370) were all written in mid-career, before his definitive move to Vienna. Had Stadlernot been the exquisitemusician he apparentlywas (or had he played the oboe more than the clarinet)perhapswe would have had a laterMozartoboe quintet, or another concerto. The questionof pitch in Mozart'sdayhas not yet been explored systematically.Haydn tells us in his letter that he had to deal with more than one pitch.32It seems that 'Viennesepitch' was a recognized standardand that it was consideredrelativelyhigh.33The date of Haydn'sletter suggeststhat pitch rose in Viennain the late 1750sor early 1760s. That he mentioned the need for 'durable hautboi' furtherimplies that, whateverthe pitches,they were expectedto remain relativelystable for some time thereafter.One thing is clear:therewas no such thing as 'Classicalpitch';differentstandardsexisted at different places. One of the reasonswhy a' = 43o is popularnowadays as a Classicalpitch is that original clarinets are rarely lower. But the clarinetis associatedwith Vienna, a city apparentlyknown at the time for its high pitch. A relatively high standardalso prevailedat the ConcertSpirituel in Parisat the end of the century.But we know that, at the same time in other parts of Europe (like Berlin, and Italy in general), pitch stabilized near a' = 415.34 Therearecertainlyinstrumentsof the periodthat sound and function better,and have a more consistentinternal intonation, at about this pitch. It is an over-simplification, then, to applya' = 430 as a defactostandard,and to assume that all Classicalinstrumentsare meant to play that high. This is what happens when players are required to produce music on historical instruments without sufficientinformationto backthem up. It is not the only example;another myth is that the addition of new keys to woodwind instruments represented progress. Certainly, keys are associated with the Industrial Revolution. But the technology necessary for large numbers of keys was alreadyin place by the early 18th century. Musettes like the one illustrated in Jacques Hotteterre'sMcthodepour la musetteof 1737had 13keys as standardequipment (illus.6). (Keyswere requiredon the musette, since, because of its 'closed' finger technique, cross-fingeringwas ineffective.)Despitethis, keys were rarelyused on woodwinds until the end of the 18th EARLY MUSIC This content downloaded from 216.87.207.2 on Sun, 8 Dec 2013 16:48:42 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions FEBRUARY 1992 47 REPRESE'NTATIONDES CIIAL.'MEA'X ANNOUNCING The Berkeley Festival & Exhibition: RehUt -& •La Music in History S , -. -,,, b• -$ij~ June 7-14, 1992 Gustav Leonhardt conducts Bach Emilyvan Evera,JeffreyDooley, JeffreyThomas,Maxvan Egmond PhilharmoniaBaroqueOrchestra U. C. BerkeleyChamberChorus OtherParticipants d.Pdv, So wim La 44,, .s,,,.-- lAnLk St mo, . Sol .11 ,a -ad.'lakn,/u,,,, American Bach Soloists Gothic Voices MusicaAntiquaKoln Telemann Chamber Orchestra (Japan) University of California at Berkeley Choruses/Marika Kuzma conducting Phillip Brett John Butt Laurence Dreyfus John Gibbons Ketil Haugsand Paul Hillier EvaLegene Elizabeth Le Guin ShinichiroNakano HopkinsonSmith and more. SLectures Symposia MasterClasses SForinformation,contact Berkeley Festival & Exhibition University of Californiaat Berkeley 101 ZellerbachHall, Berkeley, CA 94720 Tel 510. 643. 7053 Fax 510. 643. 6707 48 EARLY MUSIC FEBRUARY 6 Illustrationof musettechanters,Jacques-Martin Hotteterre, Methodepour la musette(Paris,1737) century, and then only when they were absolutely necessary.The Classicaloboe, for instance,usuallyhad only two keys, while the Baroqueoboe had three. (The duplicate e' on the Baroqueoboe for either right- or left-handplayingwereeliminatedon the Classicaloboe, thus indicatingthat the hand position that is common nowadays,left over right, had become standard.) The primarypurpose of additional keys was not to advancepuretechnique,but to adaptinstrumentsto the new demandsof early19th-centurymusic. On the oboe, additionalkeysaccomplishedtwo things:they increased range (mostly upward,by the use of speakeror octave keys),3" and they obscured (though they have never entirely eliminated) the differences in tone colour between various tonalities. The 18th-centurytraverso, oboe and bassoonnormallyhad only one chromatickey; any other keys servedmerelyas extensionsto the reach of the fingers.Chromaticnotes that were not partof the natural seven-hole scale were obtained by so-called 'forked-fingerings'(also called 'cross-fingerings')and 'half-holing'.Thesefingerings,being more complicated, were more difficultto play and produceda covered or veiled timbre. The result was the characteristically 1992 This content downloaded from 216.87.207.2 on Sun, 8 Dec 2013 16:48:42 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions Tf TI - ----- 7 Thomas Gainsborough,Portraitof JohannChristianFischer(between1774and 1788).Oil painting. (London, Collectionof Her Majestythe Queen).A recentinvestigationof this picturehas revealedthat beneathit lies Gainsborough'slong-lost attempt at a portrait of William Shakespeare,begun but never completed. EARLY MUSIC This content downloaded from 216.87.207.2 on Sun, 8 Dec 2013 16:48:42 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions FEBRUARY 1992 49 uneven scales of 18th-centurywoodwinds, which give the effect of singing a scale using differentvowels for each note. The placement of these forked and halffingeringsalong the scalegaveeach tonalityits own particularsound, techniqueand intonation.By eliminating these cross-fingerings,the new keys deprivednotes like F,G? and Bb of their distinctivecharacter.As the music of the 19thcenturygraduallymoved into extremetonalities, of course, homogeneityof sound became desirable. The new keys thus acted secondarily to make extreme tonalities more accessibletechnically. Obviously, when keys were eventually added, they were meant to ease the player'stask. But it is unlikely that they would have contributedto virtuosity.On the contrary-in some cases, the less hardware,the more freedom there is to use alternativefingerings (which offer technical solutions and greater control of tone, intonation and dynamics).Keyscan also act as a brake on technique in simple tonalitieslike C major.36 Thereare many indicationsthat oboes generallycontinued to use only two keys even well into the 19thcentury.Illustrationsof oboes with more than two keys are unknown until Vogt'sMethodepour hautbois (c.1813; illus.8). Rossini'sclose friend BaldessareCentroni, the oboist for whom he wrote all his famoussolos, is shown Anon, Portraitof BaldassareCentroni (c.1815) (Bologna, Liceo Musicale) 9 8 Illustrationof oboewithfourkeys,A.-G.Vogt,Methode (Paris,Bibliotheque Nationale) pourhautbois(Ms.,c.1813) in a portraitof c.1815with a two-keyedoboe (illus.9).37 Other pictures of two-keyed oboes from well beyond Mozart's period (illus.io, 11, 13) suggest that he is unlikelyto have encounteredanythingelse. AfterVogt,the firstfingeringchartto describean oboe with more than two keys was Joseph Sellner's Oboe Schule(Vienna,c.1825),which showedten keys.38Butall the 17known oboe chartspublishedin variouscountries in the 50 yearsthat precededSellner'sbook still show an oboe with only two keys.39 Of the survivingoboes made by JacobGrundmann, TheClarionet Kauffmann, Player. Levin/Hugo 1O Katherine who workeduntil18oo,fourseem definitelyto havebeen Etching,afteran oil paintingby KarlMuller(1813-72). (Monmadewith an extrakeyeach. (Threeof thesewereoctave treal,BruceHaynes) 50 EARLY MUSIC FEBRUARY 1992 This content downloaded from 216.87.207.2 on Sun, 8 Dec 2013 16:48:42 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions MiODELE dw DeiuIfe, a• Jau/-,o7&a,/4jr teadefx P7oporyzonmr ..,e,, ONN , 14J ' ? ,.. • • l . .... ..= • , " .it 11 Scale drawing of a Delusse oboe, F. J. Garnier, Mgthode raisonde pour le hautbois (Paris, c.1798-18oo) EARLY MUSIC This content downloaded from 216.87.207.2 on Sun, 8 Dec 2013 16:48:42 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions FEBRUARY 1992 53 Qzajnine cdw ,??admo&f Ai.i SAO I j , T- =: ' : kndordhrdu , Sre ,, ,, I-F- :F- - , but nota. lesquatres dernieres ,nottedela sna. 'gamme voir re#.ou 4 TF- .... . .... mi'mi natu: et fant nontpoi .rel de doigte determine car ies de --nesstors prof- -I rdifferentes . . . . ..-" . " ", - petitedI 'Itenduorz -defla- - .. c/IIinstrumt quipssent de oetalere seconde octave. Les pointsnoirsdtsignentles trousferme's,et les zerosles trous ouverts,ou ii se trouve un zero moitie'blanc et moitie noir, il ne faut boucher que.la moiti6 du trou. 12 Fingeringchart, A. Vanderhagen,Methodenouvelle(c.179o) keys, the other a c' .)4o All the other 50 Grundmanns were originallymade without additionalkeys,41including many of his last oboes. Of the 13 survivingoboes by Grundmann'sequallyfamous competitorAugustGrenser (fromwhom LeopoldMozartorderedtwo oboes and two Englishhorns for the Salzburgcourt in 1776),42 only one, made in 1791,has originaladdedkeys (again,for c'# and the octave).43 Only one key, the octave,44would have had any profound effecton the playingtechniqueof the instrument and how its reedswere made (by changingthe wayovertones were produced).But with two known exceptions, octave keys date from the late 1780sand beyond.45 It is hardto avoidthe conclusion that the innovationsto the oboe of Mozart'sday,while substantial,did not involve the addition of keys, much less key systems-that belonged to the next generation.And even then, they occasioned much controversy.46 But many modern playersof the so-called 'Classical' oboe use instrumentswith as many as ten keys. This is clearlyanachronistic,but in fairnessto these playersit should be noted that they are asked to play literature spanning a period from Lullyto Mendelssohn,during which the oboe evolvedfar more than it has done since. Whereasoboists of any given period in the past were usually requiredto play music in only one particular style, so-called 'specialists'on the early oboe today are anythingbut. Theyareexpectedto playFrench,German and Italian music, in pitches ranging from a' = 392 to 430. Modern players, unlike the oboists of the past, whose repertorywas much more restrictedin both time and style, are obviouslynot in a position to develop the same close contact with their instruments and the necessaryreedsetups.The presentprofessionalplayerof the earlyoboe is expectedto be ableto playthree instruments at a' = 415 (the treble oboe, oboe d'amore and oboe da caccia), at least one lateroboe (usuallyat a' = 425 or 430) and perhaps another oboe at a' = 392. For EARLY MUSIC This content downloaded from 216.87.207.2 on Sun, 8 Dec 2013 16:48:42 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions FEBRUARY 1992 55 each of these instruments a different type of reed is required, and each will have its own idiosyncrasies, specialfingerings,tone colour,responseand intonation. No wonder players look for general-purposeinstruments that can servefor music of more than one generation or area. There is also a link between the addition of keys to woodwindsand the movementawayfrom mean-tone (a tuning that suits non-keyed woodwinds well). Some of the first new keys, like the f', were meant primarilyto help play in equal temperament,by dividing the function of a singletuning hole.f andf' , for instance,both previously controlled by hole 5, became controlled by two separate holes. In a provocative article entitled 'Mozart'sTeachingof Intonation',47John Hind Chesnut wrote (p.271): Modernintonationpractice.. . is not appropriate if ourgoal is to playMozart'smusicas he himselfwantedit played.The or 'functional'intonationof quasi-Pythagorean 'expressive' nineteenth-andtwentieth-century instruments non-keyboard is particularly foreignto thetraditionin whichMozartstood. Briefly,the differencebetween the 18th-centurytuning of non-keyboardinstrumentsand present practicelies in the use of majorand minor semitones (in which, for instance,a D# differsfrom an Eb).48This implies something like mean-tone, though, as Telemann49pointed out (describingthe system as late as 1767),it is not a tuning 'basedon any keyboardtemperament;rather,it displaysthe sounds found on unrestrictedinstruments likethe cello,violin, etc., that can playpurelyin tune.. Tuning is and was different on keyboardinstruments and other kinds of instruments, because keyboards normallyhave only 12 notes availableper octave.5" The need for flexibilityin tuning on an oboe of the periodinfluencedits proportionsand design.The size of the tone-holes determines the amount of resistance against which one plays. Of the three oboe types discussed here, the Loree has the biggest tone-holes and thereforeoffersthe leastplayingresistance.As a result,it requiresa relativelystiff,thickreedto balancethe lackof resistance(a relationshipnot unlike that of the shawm, to which it is in that sense a throwback).Thatstiffnessin turn causes the reed to be relativelyinflexiblein intonation and dynamics.Inflexibilityis turnedto advantage on the 20th-centuryoboe by making it exceptionally stableand loud, two qualitiesof greatimportancein the modern orchestra.But everygain has a price:dynamics on most modern woodwinds,includingthe Lor&eoboe, are comparatively 'muscle-bound'; change must be gradual.The usualtreatmentof dynamicsthatis familiar 56 EARLY MUSIC FEBRUARY to any modern player is to superimposea crescendodecrescendo over a series of many notes, known as a 'phrase'.(This automaticallyimplies long phrases, in which one note is perceivedas the 'climax'.)Thispractice would have greatly astonished Quantz, whose famous exampleof dynamicsin an Adagio (in his Essaiof 1752) show changeson the order of four to the bar. A reedas hardas that used on the Loreewill not function on a Baroqueoboe, because of its relativelysmall tone-holeswith theirgreaterresistance.And becausethe softerreed that does work demandsless physicalinvestment, both in breathpressureand embouchurestrain, the quick nuances of dynamics and intonation demandedby 18th-centurymusic aremuch easieron the earlierinstrument.But the tone-holes on the Classical oboe are even smallerthan on the Baroqueoboe. At the same time, the bore is much narrower,not unlike the Loree. The necessaryresult is a reed that is soft like a Baroqueone, but (to match its small bore) narrowlike the Loree's.(An ideaof these differencesmaybe inferred from the relative widths of reeds: the Lor&eoboe's is about 7 mm, the Classicalabout 8 mm and the Baroque SV\ s•LU•[ IN HISTORICAL INSTRUMENTS _NINCORPORATED Historical WoodwindReplicas SELLERSand REPAIRERSOF: MAKERS, Baroqueoboes Baroquebassoons Classicalbassoons Classicalclarinetst Shawms Dulcians Baroque& renaissancerecorders for discriminatingperiod-instrument performersworldwide THE OLDEST ESTABLISHED HISTORICAL WOODWIND REPAIR SERVICE IN THE UNITED STATES Call, write or fax for our free catalogue. Call us collect from ANYWHERE for orders or serious inquiries. 1152 Green Pond Road, PO Box 407 Newfoundland, New Jersey 07435-0407 (201) 697-0535 FAX (201) 697-0536 1992 This content downloaded from 216.87.207.2 on Sun, 8 Dec 2013 16:48:42 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions Ilk 13 Anon, Portraitof an oboist (?late 18th century,English) (London, Tony Bingham) EARLY MUSIC This content downloaded from 216.87.207.2 on Sun, 8 Dec 2013 16:48:42 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions FEBRUARY 1992 5;7 higher and moving your fingersup and down as if you around lo mm.) Thesumtotalof thesedesignfactorson the Classical were playinga glissandoon the piano without any articoboe (smallertone-holes,bore and reed) combineto ulation at all, this happens among some brass players makethe high notes respondmoreeasilythanon the and among some woodwind players. But in Mozart's Baroqueoboe;theyarealsoeasierto hold,evenatpiano time did you not articulate every note one way or andpianissimo. music,of course,demandsnot another? (Classical onlyhighernotes,butmanymoreof them.)Wherethe oboe differin thisrespectis BRUCE HAYNES You certainly slurred some notes, but Classicaland20th-century in their reeds:the small tone-holesof the Classical becauseof that softerreedit'spossibleto articulatewithinstrumentdemanda softerandmoreflexiblereed. out disturbingthe embouchureso drastically.No oboist TheClassicaloboe thushas as much (or as little)in likes to tongue, but dependingon how hard the reed is common with the small-bored,high-pitched,note- you have the possibilityof tonguing more or less. There specificLoreeoboeasit haswiththe Baroqueoboe.But are a lot of articulationmarksin Classicalmusic, and I it sharescharacteristics of each,in a combinationthat guess that therewas a similaramount in Baroquemusic makesit unique.In my own experience,I havefound but it was not marked. Modern flute playing is more thatthesingularplayingcharacteristics andsoundof the legato than Classicalplayingwas. Classicaloboe are not obtainableon other kinds of oboes.No otheroboetypehasitsdistinctiveempfindsam DON SMITHERS I don't like using the term 'legato' of tone;the becausein the Classicalperiod such a passagewould still gentlenessof characterand transparency natureof the instrumentanswersthe demandsof the be articulated. Classicalrepertoryin unexpectedways,and leadsthe discoveries. Andif onehastaken JANE BOWERS No, you would slur some notes without playerto serendipitous the technicalrisksinvolvedin playingsuchan instru- articulatingthem, even a whole downwardsscale, for ment,one is inspiredalsoto takemusicalrisksas well. instance. (That, after all, is the real reason for playing original instruments:they may be steeped in history, but that baggage is light compared to the 'schools' or 'great masters'that are attachedto modern instruments.) Seen from a historical perspective, all forms of the oboe, including the modern Loree, can be considered 'transitional',since the instrumenthas alwaysbeen in a state of mutation: sometimes faster,sometimes slower, reflectingthe changingdemandsof the music it has had to playand, ultimately,the spiritof the respectiveerasin which it has flourished. The revival of Mozart'soboe bringswith it the chanceto rethinkhow his music can be played. It can open doors and reveal new insights to those who are interested. ROBERTLEVIN One of the pieces Mozart wrote for Wen- dling was the aria 'Se il padre' from Idomeneo,which uses the same four instrumentsas the wind concertante and three of the same players, Wengling, Ritter and Ramm, and so it is a very useful piece to look at their abilities. If you look at the way Mozart writes for the instrumentshere, and look at contemporarypieces, for instancethe six bassoon quartetsby Ritter,publishedin Parisat the time that Mozartmet him, those quartetsgo very high, to a' and b'V,as does the bassoon in Idomeneo, but they do not use the bottom 4th, not below low E6.Wesee overand overagainthatMozartin his writing for wind instrumentshas not a vague but an uncannily precise idea of what all the playerscan do. BruceHaynesbeganplayingand makingearlyoboesin the in theHague, DANIEL HEARTZ YOu mentioned the Attwood lessons: 1960s,and taughtat theRoyalConservatory He now lives in and Montreal, 1972-83. plays in various actuallythe one you mention is a lesson in orchestration, in North America and groups Europe, Japan.He hasjust not instrumentation.Youstopped your quote about the an edition his book Music for clarinet being useful instead of the oboe just when it got completed expanded of Oboe, and has begun a doctoral thesis on the pitch levels of 17th- and i8th-century music. Discussion DONSMITHERS On the question of articulation, the 20thidea of century breathing and blowing harder as you go interesting! Mozart says the clarinet is useful instead of the oboe where the key has too many sharps or flats, and then the lesson goes on that the clarinet plays only in one sharp or one flat. Now you might think that's a contradiction, but then Mozart goes on to tell Attwood that there are four kinds of clarinet instead of the modernEARLY MUSIC This content downloaded from 216.87.207.2 on Sun, 8 Dec 2013 16:48:42 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions FEBRUARY 1992 59 daythree.Mozartalso tells him that the highestnote for the oboe in the orchestrais d"', so the high f'" in the Oboe Quartetis an exception. Does he ever go higher than d"' in the orchestra? Thereis an e'". at the end of the AdaMARIUSFLOTHUIS gio in the big Serenadefor Stadlerand in the symphony K319,and in the 'Paris'Symphonythere is an e"', but combined with the flutes. 'Theterm 'Lor'e oboe' will be familiarto modernplayersanywhere in the world. The definitive'modern'oboe type was developedby the firm ofA. L. Lorde(successorsto Triebert)togetherwith GeorgesGillet; the firm continues to produce many of the oboes used in presentday orchestras. 2SeeB. Haynes,'Lullyand the Riseof the Oboe as Seen in Worksof Art',EM,xvi (1988),pp.324-38. 3The'syst me 6',developedby FrederickTriebertin the 1870s,is the directmodel from which the A6 'Conservatoire'Loreedeveloped.See P. Bate, 'Oboe',New Grove,xiii, p.469-70. 41brigens melden mir die zwey hautboisten (gleichwie ich auch selbsten eingestehenmus) das ihre 2 hautboi alters halber zu grund gehen, und den rechtmaissigenTonum nicht mehr geben, wesswegen EuerDurchl:den schuldigstenVortragmache, das ein MeisterRockobauerin Wienn sich befinde, welchermeines erachtensdissfahlsder kaindigsteist. weillen nun dieserMeistermit derleyarbeithzwarstitts beschafftigetist, dermahlenabersich besonderezeit nehmete,ein Paar gute daurhafftehautboi mit einen extra stuckh auf satz (womit alle erforderlicheToni genohmen werden kdnten) zu verfertigen,dauor aber der nichste Prey8 in 8 Ducaten bestehet. als habe EuerDurchl. hohen Consenszu erwarthen,ob besagte2 h6chst nothige hautboium erstgemeltenPreyBeingeschaffetwerden dtirfften. . .' (My thanksto Paul Hailperinfor help in translatingthis ratherdifficultpassage.) An oboe stamped'ROCKO-BAURWIEN was examinedsome yearsago by PaulHailperinin a privatecollectionin Kremsminster.It has three original brass keys and two others added later. The instrument is turnedin a simplified'Baroque'fashion.Hailperinconsidersits overall length very short for the period, suggestinga higherpitch than usual. According to P. T. Young, 45oo00Historical WoodwindInstruments (forthcoming),three other two-keyedoboes, an oboe d'amore,three 'tenor oboes',six Englishhorns and severalother woodwinds by this makersurvive. JosephHaydn:GesammelteBriefeund Aufzeichungen,ed. D. Bartha (Kassel,1965),p.56 states (1) that no evidence has been found in the EsterMhzyarchives that the new instruments requested were ever orderedor received;(2) that the name 'MathiasRockobauer'appears often in the financesof the EsterMhzy archives,usuallyin connection with orders(by the dozen) of 'Mundstiicke'(i.e. reeds) for oboes and Englishhorns. (If the oboes werepurchased,it is likelythey would have been used by Haydn for a considerabletime afterwards.) 'If numbersaresubstitutedfor keys (so that one flat= -1, threeflats = -3, two sharps = +2, etc.) and the total keys are divided by the number of pieces, the averagefor all oboe solos (sonatas, concertos and obbligatoswith voice) for the period 1690-1810 was -0.56. (These figuresare based on solos whose tonalities were listed in B. Haynes, Musicfor Oboe, 165o-18oo;A Bibliography(Berkeley,1985).) This is midwaybetweenno flatsand one flat,leaningslightlytowardthe latter. Oboe solos in the period 1720-50 averaged -0.62; in the period 1780-1810 the figurewas -0.60. By themselves,oboe quartets(a solo form exclusiveto the Classicalperiod) averaged-0.37. 6Toarriveat this figure,I had to count over 8,000 individualnotes. Tessituracan be quantitativelyanalysedby assigningnumbersto each note in an instrument'srange,multiplyingby the length of time each one is used, and averagingthe result.The averageof ten representative 60 EARLY MUSIC FEBRUARY oboe solos in Bach'scantatasis 14.59,between c"#and d".The figures for the three movements of the MozartOboe Quartetare 19.82,19.45 and 19.o; the mean for the three movements is 19.32,or somewhat abovef'#. 7SeeP.Young, TheLookof Music(Seattle,1980), p.146. 8SeeA. Bernardini,'CarloPalancae la costruzionedi strumentia fiato a Torinonel Settecento',I flauto dolce,xiii (1985),pp.22-6. 9Allyearsarerepresentedexcept1769-73,1775,1778,1785,1786,1790, 1795-6 and 1798. This information is from Young, 45oo00Historical WoodwindInstruments. 0Of course, instruments were also less standardizedthan today. Illustrationsfrom the period show three distinct types of oboe with differentprofiles:(1)highlypronouncedturning,as in the instruments of Grundmann(illus.i and 2); (2) reducedturning and slimmer outlines (illus.3);(3) models known as 'straight-tops'(for illustrationsof these, see Haynes, 'Lullyand the Rise of the Oboe',pp.367,371,373, 380). "I am gratefulto Cecil Adkins for supplyingme with these photographs.An excellentpaintingof the upperpartof a Classicaloboe, with reed, is Johann Joseph Zoffany's The Oboe Player,at Northampton Mass., Smith College Museum of Art (shown on the cover of EM, August 1988). ~2'Sentil'eco ove t'agiri'in Lafinta semplice,K51/46a '3Thetwo exquisitequintets with glass armonica,K617and K616a 14Mozart probablywrote the oboe solos in Lafintagiardiniera,K196 (aria3 and the Cavatina,no.22) for Secchi,who was principaloboist and Kammervirtuos at Munich in January1775.CharlesBurney,in The PresentState of Music in Germany,the Netherlands,and the United Provinces... (London,1773),i, p-172,had commentedthat Secchiwas '. . . a verygood hautboy,who, if I had not latelyheardFischer,would have charmedme.'Secchiwas mentionedby many writersof the time, and is survivedby an oboe concerto. See B. Haynes,Musicfor Oboe, 1650-18oo: A Bibliography (Berkeley,24991). Most of the oboists cited here have left compositions for their instrument. 15SeeA. Bernardini,'The Oboe in the VenetianRepublic,1692-1797', EM,xvi (1988),p.381. 16Fialawas a cellist, gambist and prolific composer who worked at Salzburgfrom 1778,moving to Vienna in 1785.See J. Piersol, The OetHofkapelleand its WindMusic (Ph.D. diss., U. of tingen-Wallerstein Iowa, 1972). 17Mozartthought Ramm was about 35 in 1777 (see letter of 3 December). He had written from Mannheim,where he had first met Ramm,that he had 'einenhibschen feinen ton' and 'sehrsch6n blast'. 18Mozart,in a letterto his fatherin February1778:'fOrden Ferlendi.' See Leopold Mozart'sletter of 15 October 1777,and Wolfgang'sof 4 is an arrangement November.Mozart'sFluteConcertoin D, K314/285d, of this piece. The Oboe Concertoquicklybecamemore associatedwith Rammthan Ferlendis(see Mozart'sletterof 15February1783).Beingat Mannheim, Ramm probablyhad a number of oboe concertos at his disposal. Mozart called it Ramm's'Chevalde bataille' See B. Paumgartner,'Zu Mozarts Oboen-Concert C-Dur K.V.314(285d)',Mozart Jahrbuch(1950),p.25. 19InParisin April 1778Mozartwrote a piece for three wind soloists from Mannheim (J. B. Wendling,Ramm and G. W. Ritter,plus Giovanni Punto) in that particularParisianfashion, the symphonieconcertante,for flute, oboe, bassoon and horn. (The piece is lost, but has been reconstructedby RobertLevin.It survivesin an alteredform as KAnh.I,9/297b/Anh.C14.ol. See R. D. Levin, Who Wrotethe Mozart Four-windConcertante? (New York,1988).TwoyearslaterMozarthad occasion to writethe aria'Se il padreperdei'in Idomeneofor the same Mannheimplayers,now at Munich. Mozartalso began another concerto for Ramm (K293/416f) in the autumn of 1778 (see Levin, pp.2-3), but it survives only as a fragment. Cf. also 'Popoli di Tessaglia'below. 2oSeeB. Haynes,'TheOboe Solo before18oo:A Survey',Journalof the InternationalDouble Reed Society (1989), pp.7-14. The quartet was 1992 This content downloaded from 216.87.207.2 on Sun, 8 Dec 2013 16:48:42 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions a'9 'At w .- 4.) f,11 "ri / ,- iI ...P.P r-r " ?"'1"" A A i, ... . 0. . <, . , *. IL Mozart'smarriagecontract,3 August 1782(BritishLibrary,Zweig69) EARLY MUSIC This content downloaded from 216.87.207.2 on Sun, 8 Dec 2013 16:48:42 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions FEBRUARY 1992 61 writtenimmediatelyafterthe firstperformancesof Idomeneo,in which Ramm was the solo oboist. 2"Popolidi Tessaglia'was written for AloysiaWeber,who was then 18,and primadonna at the Munichcourt opera.Thatthe workwas for Rammis presumed,since it was finishedat Munich,wherehe was the solo oboist. There is a possibilitythat it could have been written for LudwigAugustLebrun(1752-91), who was also in the Elector'sorchestra at Mannheimwhen Mozartvisited (though Mozartdoes not mention him in letters), and at Munich from 1778.Lebrunwas a better known soloist than Ramm.But he was often touringwith his wife, the famous soprano FranciscaDanzi. 2 See U. Toeplitz,Die Holzblaserin derMusikMozartsund ihr Verhailtniszu Tonartwahl(Baden-Baden,1978),p.88and Levin,WhoWrote the MozartFour-windConcertante?, pp.176-7. 23SeeB. Haynes,'OboeFingeringCharts,1695-1816'GSJ,xxxi (1978), p.88 2In Bb, possiblywritten in 1775;at D-HR and D-Rtt 25InF, at A-SEIand H-Bb, Ms c.1800oo 26[? Johann Christian Fischer], The Hoboy Preceptor(London, c.1800) includesnotes up to g'" in the fingeringchart (p.5). Franqoisfirstoboist at the ParisOperafrom 1786to c.18o9,also a JosephGamrnier, member of the RoyalChapelfrom 1784,goes to f'" in the chartin his Mfthoderaisonnee(c.1800),p.16.ChristianFriedrichDaniel Schubart, in Ideenzu einerAsthetikder Tonkunst(1806, though mostlywrittenin the 1780s),p.319,saysthe oboe went only to c'",but adds 'Die neuesten Meisterhaben noch das drey gestricheneD, E, und F hinzugethan.' 27K179/189a 28Letterof 4 April 1787 29SeeN. Shackleton,'Clarinet',New Grove,iv, p.440. 30One well known example is Mozart'sreplacementof oboes with clarinetsin parts of the later version of the Symphony in G minor, K550. 31'Levin,Who Wrotethe MozartFour-windConcertante?, p.53,citing an observation by Marius Flothius. Toeplitz, Die Holzblaser,p.182 points out that the two instruments appeared together only occasionallyin Mozart'sworks. 32Therangeof pitcheson survivingoboes with multipletop joints is generallyvery small. See P. T.Young, Universityof VictoriaLoanExhibition of Historic Double Reed Instruments(1988), no.28. The two pitches in question may have been those of the two sections of the Eisenstadtmusical establishment:one (the Schlosschor) playedwith a Baroque organ, the other (the 'Cammer Musique',mostly at Eszterhaiza)probably played at Viennese pitch. See H. C. Robbins Landon,Haydn:Chronicleand Works(1976),ii, p.82. 33J.F. Reichardt, Ueberdie Pflichtendes Ripien-Violinisten(Berlin and Leipzig,1776),p.86;trans.in A. Mendel, 'On the Pitchesin Use in Bach'sTime',MQ, xli (1955),P.471. 34Cf.the pitches of survivingflutes from the period made in Berlin. Mendel, ibid, quotes Marpurgas giving a Berlin a' = 414 Hz in 1776. JohannHeinrichLambertreporteda Berlina' = 415.25Hz in 1775,in 'Observationssur les Flittes',Nouveauxmemoiresde l'AcadimieRoyale desScienceset Belles-Lettres (Berlin,1777), pp.13-48,quoted in C. Karp, The Pitchesof 18th CenturyStrungKeyboardInstruments,with ParticularReferenceto SwedishMaterial(Stockholm,1984),p.14. notes were also addedto the bottom of the rangeby the use of 35Two extension keys. 36Whatoriginallyled me to learn to play the earlyoboe was when I (as a playerof the Loreeoboe) firsttried the oboe concertosof Haydn and Mozarton a recorderand realizedhow much easierthey were to play without keys. 37A.Bernardini,'Due chiaviper Rossini?Storiae sviluppodell'oboe a Bologna prima del 1850', IIflauto dolce,xvii/xviii (1987),pp.18-32. 38Theprofile of this instrumentis similarto the Dresden design of makerslike Grenser,Grundmannand Floth. 39SeeHaynes,'Oboe FingeringCharts'. 4oGrundmanns that mayhaveoriginalextrakeysarelistedin Young, 62 EARLY MUSIC FEBRUARY HistoricalWoodwindInstruments,Y numbers 14, 17, 22, 24, 28, 45oo00 46-8; six of these are dated, the earliestbeing 1781. 41Fourother instrumentsmay havehad additionaloriginalkeys,but this is not certain.SeeYoung,45oo00 HistoricalWoodwindInstruments,Y 14, 17,22 and 24. 42Theinstrumentsarrivedin 1778(see his letter of 6 July1778).It is interestingthat he complained about the intonation of the English horns, because Giuseppe Ferlendis(known for his close association with the instrument)was in Salzburgat that time, and was a friendof the Mozarts.SinceLeopoldwas not himselfan oboist, in orderto evaluate the instruments,he must have consulted someone whose judgement he trusted. 43Thesetwo keyswere evidentlyconsideredthe most necessaryadditions. As a playerof the Baroqueoboe, I havemore than once thought the instrumentwould be just about perfectwith the addition of these two keysfor c'# and the octave.One addsa note otherwisemissing,the other opens up new possibilitiesin the upper range.Auguste-Gustave Vogt, the respectedoboe teacherat the ParisConservatoryfrom 1802 until 1853,describedan oboe in his manuscriptMethodepour hautbois (c.1813) with four keys;the two additionswere for f' and low b. 44Calledthen a Schleifklappe, and first introducedto make possible upwardslurs of intervalslargerthan a 3rd. 45Thefirstsuch key we know about appearedon an oboe dated1749 by CharlesBizey (M. Piguetcollection). Grundmannaddedan octave and c'# keys to an oboe dated 1781 (Young,45oo00 HistoricalWoodwind Instruments,Y14;coincidentallythe yearthe MozartOboe Quartetwas written).The next appearanceis 1788. Butthe majority(13) of his oboes dated after1790 originallyhave only the two standardkeys. 46Haynes, 'Oboe FingeringCharts',p.8o 47JAMS, xxx (1977), pp.254-71 48SeeB. Haynes,'BeyondTemperament:Non-keyboardIntonation in the 17thand 18thCenturies',EM,xix (1991). In bar 42 of 'Popoli di mentioned above,the voice has a b6 and a# in the same bar; Tessaglia', both the oboe and violin have a' , though the piece is in C minor.The distinctionbetweenthe two notes was obviouslysignificantto Mozart. 49G.P.Telemann,'NeuesmusicalischesSystem'(1742/3)publishedin L. C. Mizler, MusikalischeBibliothek, iii (Leipzig, 1752'R1966), pp.713-19(plustables),and 'LetzteBeschaftigungG. Ph. Telemannsim 86. Lebensjahre,bestehend aus einer musikalischeKlang-und Intervallen Tafel' in Unterhaltungen,iii (Hamburg, 1767); reprinted in GeorgPhilipp Telemann:Singenist dasfundamentzur Musik in allen Dingen,ed. W. Rackwitz(Leipzig,1985), pp.266-73.This is a continuation of Telemann's'System'of 1742/3. 50'Weshouldbe less surprisedby [sucha situation]when we remember that from the nineteenthcenturyto the presentday,keyboardand been tuned accordnon-keyboardinstrumentshave characteristically ing to differentsystemsof intonation,the keyboardinstrumentsbeing in equal temperamentand the non-keyboardinstrumentsusually in some form of quasi-Pythagoreantuning.'Chesnut,p.257. 1992 This content downloaded from 216.87.207.2 on Sun, 8 Dec 2013 16:48:42 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions I I fil St Stephen'sCathedral,Vienna, from KarlSchiutzand JohannZiegler,Sammlungvon Aussichtender ResidenzstadtWien von ihren Vorstiidtenundeinigen unliegendenOerten(Vienna, 1780-c.1790) EARLY MUSIC This content downloaded from 216.87.207.2 on Sun, 8 Dec 2013 16:48:42 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions FEBRUARY 1992 63