 The Clarinet BBoard
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Author: Mario
Date: 2001-08-08 13:08
Hello:
In the last few months, I have been working hard on the beautiful concerto mentioned in the title: three movements of vintage Bach with character and life. The first movement is noble and dignified. The adagio is delicate and exquisite. The last movement is martial and vigorous. Absolutely superb music, and a definite crowd pleaser should your crowd like Bach.
As well, I have found a few other pieces for oboe d'amore that sound extremely good on the A clarinet. Looking around the best I could, I do not seem to find references to other clarinetists recording any of these pieces, or playing them in recitals.
Has anybody out there played some of these pieces (in particular, the Concerto)? I would be interested in comparing notes on interpretation issues and technical challenges. Do your coaches and teachers sometimes recommended some of these pieces as part of your musical development?
As a point of interest, the oboe d'amore is pitched in A (half-way between the oboe in C and the english horn in F). The music for this lovely instrument can therefore be played as is on the clarinet in A. This opens a direct door into the baroque and renaissance repertoire for clarinetists. As well, music is still composed today for this instrument. Naturally, composers choose the oboe d'amore for its pastoral properties, and modern compositions are often of this nature: calm, sweet, melancholical, almost "new age" in feel - extremely well suited to the "A". I am having a great time working on this oboe d'amore music, and my public seems happy with this beautiful repertoire. I strongly recommend it.
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Author: Ken Shaw
Date: 2001-08-08 14:05
Mario -
An oboe d'amore concerto is mentioned in some Bach documents, but the music has never been found. The music you have is a conjectural reconstruction from, I think, the 5th Harpsichord Concerto. It works wonderfully for oboe d'amore, and there is some internal evidence that it is in fact the lost concerto. As you say, it's also great on A clarinet.
Bach wrote quite a few cantata arias with oboe d'amore obbligato. All of them are gorgeous with A clarinet, and gives clarinetists some baroque repertoire. I'm not sure, but I think some of the Telemann cantatas from Die Harmonische Gottesdienst also have oboe d'amore obbligato. The Bach and Telemann sets will be available in most music libraries.
Best regards.
Ken Shaw
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Author: Mario
Date: 2001-08-08 14:47
Thanks Ken. In fact, the 4 oboe concertos attributed to Bach all had to be reconstructed from Harpsichord versions. All the oboists I spoke with (and the notes attached to the couple of CD of the concerto that I have) are categorical in this respect: they were written for the oboe. However, people who are not oboist take a more reserved view on the question and are not as certain. At any rate, the music is simply wonderful and immediately available to us.
Yes, the cantatas are sublime and I have them. I have the good fortune of playing regularly with an outstanding soprano quite fond of this repertoire. This is great fun.
Thanks for the information on the Teleman's work. I will chase it down.
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Author: David Pegel
Date: 2001-08-08 15:23
What's amazing is that oboes used to come from soprano to bass varieties and bassoons did similar. This oboe d'amore was probably one of the "lost" varieties, like the bass oboe and alto bassoon. A lot of instruments seemed to disappear off the face of the earth around the baroque preriods. Too bad, I would have loved to hear what Bach really had in mind for the d'amore, seeing how clarinets and oboes have such a different - yet beautiful - range of sounds.
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Author: Mario
Date: 2001-08-08 15:43
The oboe d'amore is still in used today and can be purchased from the usual manufacturers. Like other vintage instruments, our recent interest in authentic ancient music is causing a revival of all kinds of "lost" instruments. You can get a baroque oboe d'amore, or a modern one with all the frills (oboists seem to love adding little holes here and little keys there and never seem to complain about what it does to their tone - not like us clarinetists, but I digress...)
The two CD of the concerto that I have (DG and Phillips) use oboe d'amore for these concertos, although oboe versions also exist. These are modern recordings and provide a fine view of the lovely sound if this instrument.
ww.amoris.com is a good portal into the oboe world. Amoris is a publishing company run by Jennifer Paul, and outstanding oboist and oboe d'amore-ist. You can buy CD and sheet music of fairly recent compositions for oboe d'amore directly from the site. I found some real neat music in there, with titles like "Nocture on an Icelandic Melody", "Autumn Pastorale" to name a few recent compositions (the title are good indication of the mood) all the way back to a couple of jewells by somebody called Louis de Caix d'Hervelois who wrote two little pieces called "La Gracieuse" and "Les vendangeuses". They are pretty variations in the galant style from the late renaissance period (similar to what Lully was composing for Louis XIV) describing, as it should, beautiful women. This music is great to expand our musical horizon.
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Author: Mario
Date: 2001-08-10 16:52
Assuming that this thread is not completely dead... and of interest to somebody...
I did some more research (i:e: search on the web with the key words "oboe d'amore", Naxos, Amaxon, Archambault Music, etc.) and I found a few interesting things. Telemann wrote many pieces for oboe d'amore; so did quite a few unknown composers. There is indeed a resurgence of oboe d'amore material written in the last half of the last century. I will listen to this music and eventually post which of this oboe d'amore music would be worth spending time on for A clarinstists (lot of is probably second rate with a few brillant pieces here and there -one must choose...). There are tons of great clarinet material out there, so the idea is to find the few pieces that really add significantly to our A clarinet repertoire.
Is the Bach's Concerto in A Major really a concerto for oboe d'amore? Everything I read (including things written by harpsichord musicians) points solidly to a concerto written originally for oboe d'amore and adapted afterward to harpsichord by Bach. The other Bach oboe concertos (including the one a D major played today on the oboe but considered an oboe d'amore original by some scholars) have a less certain origin. They may or may not be genuine oboe concertos. As a matter of fact, Bach reused fragments of his music constantly. Many of the themes in his concertos also exist in his cantatas. So go figure.
That being said, harpschord versions are versions originating directly from Bach's own manuscripts, while all oboe's versions were "reconstructed" from scholar's work. This world seems to have taken place in the 50's, with oboists writing with adoration about the scholars who did this research and of some of the earliest "legendary" recordings of these works (which I am trying to track down). It is obvious that oboists treasure these reconstructions and have no issues playing them as true oboe pieces.
The A Major reconstruction was the easiest. It turns out that the harpshichord manuscript has a clean, neat single solo voice line (with no changes) on top of which Bach added additional voices and ornementations (with many changes - it is a real unfinished draft manuscript with lot of things put in and removed) to create the harpsichord version. This single unmodified line (one of the strongest evidences sholars use to indicate that the harpsichord version came from another work that was truly finished at the time) is what publishers of the Urtext edition (BH) used for their sheet music. All oboe d'amore CD versions that I have add some of the hapsichord ornementations to the oboe line though, with the artist always saying "because I like it". A oboe professoor at McGill with whom I discussed this told me the other day that we should stay close to the Urtext version if we want to stay close to Bach's intent, but it was common practice for Baroque musicans to ornement on the fly - so if it sounds good, do it, but remain rrespectful, frugal and tasteful at all time - a bit like vibrato on the clarinet.
What is obvious is that the A Major concerto use long notes well suited to winds but impossible on the harpsichord (hence all the trills and ornements). As well, this concerto has strong phrasing with implied dynamic that harpsichords simply cannot reproduce. The balance between the soloist and the orchestra is all off in harpsichord versions. In fact, harpsichord versions (which I bought to compare) just sound remote, dull, shrill and thin on the A concerto, while other original Bach's works for harpsichord sound much better.The A Major look stretched indeed on the harpshichord (but much less on the D Major I might add, since the D Major is more virtuosistic with much more notes - nice lively themes beautiful on both the oboe and the harpsichord).
Naxos is the only version I could find on the web where the D Major concerto is played by an oboe d'amore. I cannot find sheet music for it either. The oboe is a horn with its fundamental in the key of Concert D (not C as we often think). Oboe love the key of D. This is probably why it is played on oboe now. Oboe d'amore have to play it higher and in F. It must have been harder on baroque oboes then, and the piece eventually got associated with the oboe. The D Major is also very interesting (and quite virtuosistic). But according to scholars (and my own personal preference), the A Major is more accomplished musically. It is considered by Bach's specialists as probably the most accomplished of Bach's orchestral music (Bach did not write much music for orchestra - all his orchestral music are concertos), and one of its greastest pieces period. So, when we clarinetist play the A Major concerto, we play some of the best Bach music available out there.
I used to consider the Mozart concerto as the most accomplished piece of music I learned. As I am digging deeper in the Bach Concerto in A Major, I am discovering a piece of music with incredible beauty and fasinating challenges up there with the Mozart concerto.. I highly recommend it. I wish one of the grand masters of the clarinet would record it to show us the way, and to legitimize this piece as a worthy addition to the standard clarinet repertoire (a little bit like Micheal Collins is doing with the Beethoven Concerto in D Major - another giant amongst concertos that we must all re-discover in this light).
I still have not heard of anybody having travelled the oboe d'amore path that I am exploring at the moment. Is it possible that, in this big world and for all this time, I am truly the first clarinetist (and only an amateur on top of that) to see the potential of oboe d'amore music for our A clarinet repertoire? Again, if anybody out there have worked on this material, please get in touch with me in order to learn from each other.
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