 The Oboe BBoard
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Author: kdk ★2017
Date: 2009-03-08 00:15
I'm a clarinetist who normally reads and posts on the clarinet BB, but I've come up with some questions about the Marcello oboe concerto that I hope will turn out to be a more familiar topic here.
I'm writing program notes for a local youth orchestra. The program includes the Marcello. Two questions:
1. The score attributes the concerto to Benedetto Marcello. As I've begun to research it on the web, I'm finding that it has been more recently attributed to his brother Alessandro instead. When did this change become generally accepted and is there any documentation I can access (preferably online) that would give more background?
2. I've seen the concerto written and referred to in both C minor and D minor. I know Bach adapted it for clavichord (BWV 974) and used D minor. I've read that early 18th century editions of the original oboe concerto have been found in both keys. The score I'm working with (which is a Xerox of the conductor's score for this concert) is in C minor, and two oboists with whom I rehearsed last night both know it only in C minor. Which key is considered by modern scholars to have been the original oboe key?
Thanks for any insight.
Karl
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Author: cjwright
Date: 2009-03-08 02:35
Not sure of the documentation, but it was originally written in D minor, as I have seen facsimiles of the original. Also, having played baroque oboe a bit now, it's MUCH friendlier in D, than it would be in c
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Author: oboedrew
Date: 2009-03-08 03:00
And before Benedetto I believe it was attributed to Vivaldi.
Here's your documentation:
http://www.idrs.org/publications/journal2/jnl10/marc.html
Cheers,
Drew
www.oboedrew.com
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Author: kdk ★2017
Date: 2009-03-08 03:02
So I've read. In an article in the International Double Reed Society Journal in 1982, James Hobbs speculates that the C minor version may have been done so the piece could be performed in written D minor on a B-flat oboe, which he says existed at the time. I guess the implication would be that somehow the C minor version gained some currency as the fingering system became more accommodating. Do you know anything about this?
I do have an old recording of John DeLancie (I think from the 1960s) playing this piece in C minor with the Philadelphia Orchestra. Has that become the standard key for this piece in modern times, or is it also performed regularly in d?
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Author: oboedrew
Date: 2009-03-08 03:09
Unfortunately (in my opinion), I hear it performed more often in C-Minor here in the US. But I've got a handful of recordings of leading European oboists doing it in D-Minor. Perhaps we Americans need to brush up on our musicology?
Cheers,
Drew
www.oboedrew.com
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Author: oboedrew
Date: 2009-03-08 03:11
Of course, I don't have any statistics on the matter, so it could be merely coincidence that I've heard it performed mostly in C-Minor. Personally, I won't touch the C-Minor version, not so much because of the key as because of the awful second movement ornamentation.
Cheers,
Drew
www.oboedrew.com
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Author: kdk ★2017
Date: 2009-03-08 03:25
Drew, thanks very much for your help.
Karl
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Author: oboedrew
Date: 2009-03-08 03:37
A select discography:
D-Minor Version recorded by...
Emanuel Abbuhl
John Anderson
Nicholas Daniel
Paolo Grazzi
Bruce Haynes
Heinz Holliger
Malcolm Messiter
C-Minor Version recorded by...
Pierre Pierlot
Evelyn Rothwell
I own the Abbuhl, Anderson, Daniel, Holliger, and Messiter recordings. I've heard the others at one point or another. There are probably a few dozen more recordings of this work. The Abbuhl and Holliger recordings are my personal favorites. Seriously, every oboist should hear these two. So, if you don't already own them, rush out and buy them TONIGHT! Well, at least the Holliger. Good luck finding the Abbuhl here in the US. I found my copy in some hole-in-the-wall used cd store years ago. Can anybody tell me if it is widely available overseas?
Cheers,
Drew
www.oboedrew.com
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Author: oboedrew
Date: 2009-03-08 03:41
By the way, anyone know where that old DeLancie recording can be purchased? I've never heard it. Never was much of a DeLancie fan, but I'd still like to hear it. Love his sound. Don't like too much else about his playing, but love his sound.
Cheers,
Drew
www.oboedrew.com
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Author: cjwright
Date: 2009-03-08 03:50
It's on this ridiculous CD of Baroque music for babies or something.
http://webreeds.com/wrstore/index.php?main_page=product_info&cPath=76_102&products_id=208
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Author: oboedrew
Date: 2009-03-08 04:19
Ha! Wow. "Build Your Baby's Brain?!?!?" That's sad. I may not be a big DeLancie fan, but NOBODY deserves to have their playing packaged like that.
Cheers,
Drew
www.oboedrew.com
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Author: oboedrew
Date: 2009-03-08 07:25
I forgot all about that one. I've got a copy of it that somebody burned for me years ago. Now I can't even remember where I got it. I'll have to pull it out and listen to it again.
Cheers,
Drew
www.oboedrew.com
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Author: hautbois
Date: 2009-03-08 13:34
I have a Leon Goossens recording in c minor, produced in the 1940s.
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Author: kdk ★2017
Date: 2009-03-08 15:33
I don't know where else it might have been issued, but the recording I have is part of an album called "First Chair Encores Volume 2" - one of two LPs put out on the Columbia label (the first has a Handel oboe concerto played by Tabuteau). I'm not sure when Volume 2 was recorded - had to have been after 1961 because Murray Panitz is the flutist. The Columbia catalog number is MS 6977 for the LP. I don't know if it was ever re-issued as a CD, since it was originally made to benefit the Philadelphia Orchestra Pension Fund.
Karl
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Author: oboedrew
Date: 2009-03-08 16:09
Howard, I wish I could, but posting mp3's is not allowed on this forum. Plus, it's copyrighted material.
Cheers,
Drew
www.oboedrew.com
Post Edited (2009-03-08 16:10)
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Author: Mark Charette
Date: 2009-03-08 17:13
oboedrew wrote:
> Howard, I wish I could, but posting mp3's is not allowed on
> this forum. Plus, it's copyrighted material.
It's more the opposite; it's copyrighted material, so it's not allowed on this forum. It happens to be an MP3. There are so few MP3 that aren't copyright violations when posted that to make it easier on myself I generally disallow MP3s.
I let the other big sites with expensive lawyers worry about copyright violations.
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Author: Bobo
Date: 2009-03-08 17:47
May I add to the long list of excellent recordings...Gordon Hunt, Albrecht Mayer and Robin Williams, the first in C minor and the latter two in D minor...I think the C minor version misattributed to Benedetto was the standard version in the US several decades ago (at least it was when I first learned it). I didn't even know there was a D minor version.
The D minor version with the optional Bach ornamentation is excellent and I prefer it, but I played the old C minor version so many times (it was a standard for county ensemble auditions) that in some cases I prefer the slow movement ornamentation contained in that version.
I enjoy playing both versions! But the key of D is clearly more intrinsic to the oboe harmonically. I've seen the Bach double for oboe and violin in both keys as well but the one that I've always seen recorded is the C minor version. Again, the D minor version is a lot easier to play..those D-Eb trills are not ideal in the C minor version!
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Author: oboedrew
Date: 2009-03-08 18:38
Do you know where Albrecht Mayer's recording can be purchased? I enjoy his playing very much, so I'd love to hear that one.
Cheers,
Drew
www.oboedrew.com
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Author: oboedrew
Date: 2009-03-08 19:21
Thanks, guys. Just ordered it. I am looking forward to hearing this one quite a bit. Albrecht Mayer always presents such a unique and inimitable version of even the most over-played works.
Cheers,
Drew
www.oboedrew.com
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Author: wkleung
Date: 2009-03-08 20:23
Bach had a habit of transposing a piece when he adopted it for the keyboard. His transcription of the Marcello Oboe Concerto was in D minor for the keyboard, and at that time musicologists though it must have been in C minor originally. So the first published version (in the 20th century) was in C minor, and the older batch of oboists recording it in that key. Heinz Holliger won the Geneva competition in 1959 playing it in C minor (it was a piece on the competition list).
Since then we have made great strides in musicology and found that the piece was written by Alessandro Marcello, in D minor. However, many people were not updated on that, and the habit of playing the C minor version lingers on, mostly on this side of the Atlantic.
The piece was written in D minor and I believe it should be played that way. And it's easier in D minor than in C minor, on modern or baroque oboe, don't you think?
Sincerely,
Wai Kit Leung
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Author: kdk ★2017
Date: 2009-03-08 23:31
Other than the 1982 IDBS Journal article by James Hobbs that Drew cited earlier, is there other literature you can point me to describing the process by which the mis-attribution and key were substantiated? I've read that Frank Walker was one of the first to try to correct the errors, but I haven't found anything online about his original research other than the references in the Hobbs article.
TIA,
Karl
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Author: wkleung
Date: 2009-03-09 01:24
I don't remember where my information came from. From the oboe part, it's more than likely to me that the piece was in D minor. I have the full score in C minor at home. When I have time, I can study the score and see if I get more insight into it.
As a side note. Hansjorg Schellenberger actually refused to listen to a masterclass student who presented the C minor version. He demanded the D minor version.
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Author: jhoyla
Date: 2009-03-09 13:00
"Hansjorg Schellenberger actually refused to listen to a masterclass student who presented the C minor version. He demanded the D minor version."
One wonders what didactic purpose was served here, if this is an accurate depiction.
J.
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Author: wkleung
Date: 2009-03-09 19:12
I suppose Schellenberger considered the C minor version to be wrong and refused to listen to it. It's like a conductor refuses to conduct an alternativer version of Beethoven's 5th Symphony in C# minor
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Author: jhoyla
Date: 2009-03-10 10:12
Nonetheless, my sympathies are with the student who prepared diligently and was probably unaware of the D minor version until his public humiliation.
I suppose the student could chalk it up to experience. If he or she was planning on a career in music, this would not be the last humiliation received at the hands of the Great and the Ruthless. Music is one tough profession.
J.
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Author: wkleung
Date: 2009-03-10 19:31
If I remember correctly, the student was presenting the Marcello in the audition (that would determine whether someone would be performer or auditor for the masterclass). Perhaps it was better for her -- some students got destroyed and humiliated in the masterclass.
I think the onus should fall on her own teacher, who should have been better informed about the oboe repetoire. No capable teacher today should prepare a student on the C minor version anymore. But as we all know, there are tons of incapable teachers out there. I started learning from one.
To me, Marcello in C minor really makes no sense. That puts the range of the oboe from low C to high Bb.
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Author: oboedrew
Date: 2009-03-10 22:01
I agree with you, wkleung, that teachers nowadays should strongly recommend (if not require) that their students learn the D-Minor version. I always take a few minutes to explain to my students the history of the concerto and its various misattributions, and then I leave the decision to them. They usually prefer the D-Minor, since they know an informed audience will consider them ignorant if they perform the C-Minor. Unfortunately, we have many teachers (even some very capable ones!) here in the US who grew up with the C-Minor version and are either unwilling or unable to learn a new version. I have to admit that I lose a little respect for those teachers. I can't imagine a professor of literature requiring that his class read a misattributed and poorly edited version of a novel. Yet that's the sort of thing that is commonplace in schools of music, where orchestral experience too often trumps academic accomplishment in the hiring process.
Cheers,
Drew
www.oboedrew.com
Post Edited (2009-03-11 00:28)
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Author: wkleung
Date: 2009-03-11 03:23
Hi Drew, I am holding a similar view to yours. I was auditing a masterclass given by one of the most highly-regarded oboists and teachers in the US (he is the principal of one of the top 5 orchestras). A student played the Marcello in D minor, but he said he preferred the C minor version because "the 2nd movement of the D minor version is too busy" ... well, Marcello didn't write any of those ornamentations.
He then proceeded to hear a student on K314, and made a suggestion that I found totally anti-musical. That teacher also wasn't sure if Zelenka was Bohemian or not. Nataurally, I don't have much respect for that teacher after that (not that I was hugely impressed with him to start with).
It's a pity that too many oboists / oboe students in the USA are focused on achieving a certain kind of tone, or to play excerpts the same way as their teachers would (which would guarantee success in auditions). Musicology and musicanship have much room for improvement in my opinion.
Sincerely,
Wai Kit Leung
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Author: Bobo
Date: 2009-03-11 03:55
Having initially learned the piece in the C Minor version, I must say I'm attached to some of the ornamentation from that version...however, for me (i.e. for my own playing of the piece) the ideal solution is to play the piece in D Minor and selectively pilfer the ornamentation from the C Minor version while generally hewing to the Bach. Why not? As you point out, the Bach interpretation of A. Marcello's work is just one take (though it's wonderful for so many reasons that it has been preserved). Re your comments on the masterclass, perhaps it shows that what it takes to make a fantastic orchestral principal differs to a significant degree from what it takes to make a great interpreter of the chamber/concerto literature!
Post Edited (2009-03-11 04:26)
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Author: oboedrew
Date: 2009-03-11 05:14
Well said, wkleung and bobo. Sometimes even the greatest orchestral players give dreadful performances of Bach cantatas and Telemann partitas. We should expect as much. After all, they were not trained to perform Bach and Telemann. That repertoire has been largely abandoned by modern symphonies.
I've ruffled a few feathers in the past by suggesting (only semi-facetiously) to orchestral players that winning an audition requires only that your performance of a handful of late Romantic period excerpts divorced entirely from any musical context be found less offensive than that of your competitors to a jury of a half dozen equally boring musicians. :D
I do enjoy orchestral music, and I have great admiration for the players who perform it well. But it is unfortunate that such players are often put on a pedestal and expected to be knowledgeable about many other sorts of music. I think the oboe world would be better off if we all had more realistic expectations. Leading orchestral players are where they are because they are highly consistent and because they have extraordinary technique and control, not because they are especially learned.
During my student days, I learned that it's best to play orchestral excerpts when an orchestral player gives a masterclass, unless that player is known to be a competent interpreter of other repertoire. Playing Marcello for many orchestral players makes about as much sense as playing Basie or Coltrane, or Green Day, or Dylan. It's just not their field.
Well, it's late, and I'm rambling, and I see that this thread has wandered far from its original topic, so I'm off to bed.
Cheers,
Drew
www.oboedrew.com
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Author: Bobo
Date: 2009-03-11 15:09
Apropos Drew's keen observations and the wandering thread, I'd give my highest marks for simultaneous excellence in both the orchestral and solo (incl. mastery of the baroque) spheres to.....drumroll....Albrecht Mayer and Alex Klein...also, Gonzalo Ruiz for his astounding period chamber and orchestral work. I suppose it's probably no accident that James Caldwell taught both Klein and Ruiz at Oberlin..his CD shows him to be a master of both as well. And Albrecht Mayer is just the total musician...what can you say? My favorite orchestral oboist at the moment is Eugene Izotov at the CSO, but I'd say the jury is still out w.r.t. his mastery of the classical and esp. baroque chamber spheres (c'mon Eugene, more solo CDs!). None better in the 19th and 20th c. orchestral literature or showy 19th c. salon pieces. My 2c! Anyone else care to chime in?
Post Edited (2009-03-11 17:07)
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Author: wkleung
Date: 2009-03-11 16:52
I also give highest marks for simultaneous excellence in both orchestral and solo repertoire. Except for Heinz Holliger (who quit the orchestra for a solo career after a few years at Basle), most well-known soloists are/were also excellent orchestral musicians -- Lothar Koch, Hansjorg Schellenberger, Albrecht Mayer, Manfred Clement, Pierre Pierlot, Jacques Chambon, Maurice Bourgue, Gordon Hunt, Douglas Boyd ... the list goes on and on.
One (retired) English horn player from a top US orchestra gave a masterclass and he played the trills in Handel starting from the main note ... all the time ...
Post Edited (2009-03-11 17:19)
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Author: oboemoboe
Date: 2009-03-11 23:50
wkleung wrote: "As a side note. Hansjorg Schellenberger actually refused to listen to a masterclass student who presented the C minor version. He demanded the D minor version".
Ha! I was there, I remember that!
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Author: oboemoboe
Date: 2009-03-11 23:55
It actually was quite sad to watch, I felt bad for the poor girl who had practiced so much to play for Herr Schellenberger...
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Author: wkleung
Date: 2009-03-12 04:13
Hi obemoboe, what's your name? There were quite a few girls from Quebec there, so I don't know who were you. I was one of the few guys there, so you should know who I am.
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Author: wkleung
Date: 2009-03-12 19:37
Yes sorry I forgot to include Schilli. I have his Vivaldi, Albinoni as well as Hoffman recordings. He is a great artist.
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Author: wkleung
Date: 2009-03-13 07:52
I see. So you were the one who played gordon jacob and got a fingering for high eb, right?
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Author: oboemoboe
Date: 2009-03-13 11:44
Holy crap, I don't even remember the Eb thing... (must be in a notebook somevhere)... I think I was so nervous playing in masterclass that it kind of slipped my memeory!
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