Just
out on the ASV label, (CD DCA 1173) English Oboe Concertos. Ruth Bolister with
the Elgar Chamber Orchestra conducted by Stephen Bell, with Kate Hill, flute.
World Premiere recording
Gordon Jacob Concerto No.1 for oboe and strings.
Sir Edward Elgar, Soliloquy.
Gustav Holst, A Fugal Concerto.
Sir Eugene Goosens, Concerto en un Movement.
Ralph Vaughan Williams, Oboe Concerto in A minor.
Gustav Holst, A Fugal Concerto.
One of the most dominant influences on the composition of new works for oboe during the 20th century was the British oboist Leon Goossens (1897- 1988), who began his career as a leading orchestral oboist in London and went on to become one of the first performers to promote the oboe widely as a solo instrument in recitals and concerti. One of the early highlights of Goossens’ career was his participation in the first public performance of Gustav Holst’s Fugal Concerto for flute, oboe and strings, which was given on 11 October 1923 at London’s Queen’s Hall with the flautist Robert Murchie and the New Queen’s Hall Orchestra conducted by the composer himself. Holst had composed this compact work during a visit to the USA earlier in the same year when he had been a guest at the University of Michigan. He wrote out the score in the Michigan University Library and presented the manuscript to the Library as a token of thanks for the university’s hospitality during his visit: the Fugal Concerto received its private first performance at the university, given by members of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra under Frederick Stock, some five months before Goossens played the work in London. Holst later sanctioned performance by two violins rather than flute and oboe, an understandably pragmatic alternative scoring given what was then a severe paucity of proficient solo wind players – a situation that Goossens soon did much to remedy by the inspirational example his playing presented to up and coming young instrumentalists.
Sir Eugene Goosens, Concerto en un Movement.
Goossens belonged to an unusually talented family of musicians: his elder brother Eugene was a versatile composer and conductor, while his sisters Sidonie and Marie were both stalwart harpists in leading orchestras. Among Eugene Goossens’ achievements was his conducting of the first British performance of Stravinsky ’s Rite of Spring in 1921, and he was also active as a conductor of music for prestigious silent films. He undertook to compose a single-movement Oboe Concerto for Leon with the intention of their mounting the first performance as part of Leon’s debut concert in the USA in 1928, and included a virtuosic cadenza reputed to have been inspired by the oboist’s technical exercises. Work on the score progressed slowly, and the concerto had not been fully orchestrated in time for its already postponed premiere in Boston in 1929, so the brothers performed the score on that occasion with Eugene supplying a piano reduction. The definitive version of the work was eventually presented as part of the 1930 Henry Wood Promenade Concerts in London, and it quickly became firmly established in the repertoire, Leon making a celebrated recording of it in 1948 under the baton of Walter Susskind. Leon Goossens’ remarkable playing inspired many other leading composers to compose works for him, including Benjamin Britten, Arnold Bax, Arthur Bliss and Arthur Benjamin.
Sir Edward Elgar, Soliloquy.
In 1930 Edward Elgar began planning a Suite for oboe and orchestra intended as a tribute to the oboist’s consummate artistry. Little was known about this work, which the composer did not complete, until the score of a single untitled movement surfaced amongst his manuscripts after his death in 1934. The fragment was given the title Soliloquy and orchestrated by Gordon Jacob in accordance with the instrumentation details indicated by Elgar on the manuscript short score . Gordon Jacob was an appropriate choice of arranger for the Elgar piece, both on account of his deep affinity with Elgar’s music and his own experience of composing for the oboe.
Gordon Jacob Concerto No.1 for oboe and strings.
Jacob’s first oboe work was an Oboe Quartet he composed in 1933 for Evelyn Rothwell, one of his most talented students at the Royal College of Music (who married the conductor John Barbirolli in 1939). Jacob took considerable pains with the oboe part and asked Rothwell to try out many passages as he worked on the score; she performed the work in 1934 and soon after Jacob decided to convert it into a Concerto for oboe and strings. At the time, Rothwell was studying with Leon Goossens, who saw the potential in Jacob’s concerto and rather shamelessly hijacked the score for his own ends, promising to give it a high-profile premiere with Sir Thomas Beecham if Jacob would dedicate the work to Goossens rather than Rothwell. Jacob relented with reluctance, and the prestigious first performance duly took place in February 1935 at the Queen’s Hall with the London Philharmonic Orchestra. Rothwell remained Jacob’s close friend, performing his concerto herself on many occasions, and in 1966 he composed an Oboe Sonata for her. Three years later he made a further addition to the solo oboe repertoire in the shape of a set of Seven Bagatelles, composed for Sarah Francis.
Ralph Vaughan Williams, Oboe Concerto in A minor.
Ralph Vaughan Williams composed his Concerto in A minor for oboe and strings for Leon Goossens in late 1943, reworking sketches for a scherzo movement he had rejected from his recently completed Fifth Symphony. The first performance of the concerto was scheduled to take place as part of the Promenade Concerts in the following July. Vaughan Williams first brought the work to the attention of Henry Wood in a letter written in January 1944, in which he commented: "I have by me at present a concerto for oboe and strings which has never been performed – but I think that you consider that oboe concertos do not do in the Albert Hall." In spite of Wood ’s objection to the proposed venue, he duly agreed to conduct the work and Vaughan Williams sent him the completed score on 31 May with a covering note apologising for the delay, which had been caused by his copyist’s illness and his own unforeseen desire to rewrite parts of it. The concerto was destined not to be performed in the Albert Hall after all: the premiere had to be postponed as a result of the attacks on London by German flying bombs that summer, and it was mounted instead in Liverpool over two months later, with Goossens accompanied by the Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra under the direction of Malcolm Sargent. The first London performance eventually took place on 4 May the following year, on which occasion Goossens was accompanied by the Bromley and Chislehurst Orchestra under the baton of Marjorie Whyte. The concerto found a niche in the repertoire surprisingly slowly, with critics divided about its compositional merits and the demanding solo part remaining even today a formidable challenge to any aspiring soloist. © Mervyn Cooke, 2003