Author: oboeblank
Date: 2004-07-25 17:48
I don't think you were being blunt or offensive, and I generally agree with what you have written about soloists as opposed to orchestral musicians. I think the primary difference in North America is that we seldom look upon wind instruments as 'solo' instruments. Look at the winners from the Gillet/Fox/IDRS competition, most of the winners have been European players. I think in North America we tend to dismiss the notion that you could make a living as an oboe or for that matter a wind soloist in general, so most of our training is geared towards orchestral playing. There have been a few oboists who have won major European competitions, such as Alex Klein but he didn't go out and create an international solo career for himself.
I think that the oboe world is shrinking though. If you listen to oboe players ten to twenty years ago you could easily differentiate the nationalistic schools and even guess at their lineage of instruction, now it is much more difficult. French oboe players don't sound typically light as exemplified by Pierlot but have a robust tone quality. I think the same can be said about many players. One example is Emily Pailthorpe. She is American, trained at the Julliard school with a John Mack disciple-Elaine Douvas, lives in England and she plays very much like an Enlgish oboist. She takes risks and tries to do more which is refreshing, but can sound very odd at times.
I hope this doesn't come across as me looking down my nose at other world oboe styles. I don't think that English, French, German, Italian, Asian, Dutch oboe players are off the mark. I think that for what their conductors and musical tastes ask for I think they deliver the musical 'goods' so to speak. I don't think that John Mack has cornered the market on acceptable oboe playing, but I feel that for myself as a young oboist his concept of tone is closer to the ideal here in America, again I am speaking for myself. I am sure you would find that some other oboe player might mention Richard Woodhams of the Philadelphia orchestra as one the the greatest if not the greatest oboe player in North America.
My comments about John Mack being influential pertain to him as an orchestral musician and a pedagogue.
Perhaps what is more important is that maybe European musicans and orchestras have a greater tolerance for different oboe tones. I think it would be very difficult for a European trained oboist to work in North America, just as I think it would be very difficult for a North American oboe player to work in Europe.
Hope I was not offensive in the last couple of posts, if I was my apologies.
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