“The oboe curriculum at Curtis consisted almost entirely of etudes, long tones, slow scales and arpeggios and occasionally duets. Annually there was an oboe recital in which each student would perform one or two solo pieces, and after our first year or two of study we were allowed to accept professional engagements outside the school, provided that we kept up our studies satisfactorily and didn’t create conflicts with our school obligations…”
“Mr. de Lancie began my first lesson by playing on is oboe and reed a low D natural of seemingly endless duration that began with a clearly enunciated whisper, developed to a deep, sonorous fortissimo with no distortion of tone quality, and then gradually diminished in a perfectly modulated way so that the actual ending of the note was virtually inaudible. (I suggest that any oboist reading this article who feels the need for a lesson in humility soak up a reed and try this at home!)
This demonstration was a revelation to me, a revelation that one note could carry so much power, life and meaning; I was accustomed as most hot-shot young kids are to trying to play the maximum number of notes in the shortest period of time! I quickly deduced the following imperatives: that one must develop a prolonged sostenuto with one’s air, have a clean and reliable attack in the low register, develop a real dynamic range that is not a mere illusion created by raising and lowering the instrument, and be able to create the tool helping one to do all of this, a vibrant and flexible reed. So many of the basic challenges of mastering the oboe were defined for me in the first note of my first lesson—Mr. de Lancie flung down the gauntlet in an unforgettable manner. Needless to say, I’ve been working at these things ever since. These skills are particularly valuable in orchestral playing, where an artistic player can make a one note solo say a lot.”
“We then went on to the first Barret melody where he explained how the use of the “speed of the wind” applied to musical phrasing by creating motion suggested by the underlying harmonic tension and relaxation defined by the bass line and by the melodic shape and structure of the music. In a variant of the dictum of “putting the notes on the wind,” he said I must learn to “play between the notes” to achieve a true legato and compelling musical line, and demonstrated with a slow scale where all the notes were perfectly conjoined and matching in timbre. He urged that scales be practiced slowly, with an increase in intensity and volume as one ascends, to counteract the natural inclination of the oboe to be loud down low and weak in the high notes.”
“During my course of study, nearly every prepared etude had to be transposed either up or down a halfstep or whole step after having been learned in the original key. I believe that this tradition came from a custom necessary to learn in order to play in opera in earlier days, to accommodate singers. Today it has little professional use, but I believe that it is invaluable, like solfege, in developing the ear and musical concentration. It also encourages evenness of sonority, good intonation, and reliable technique.”
“Oboe students may be surprised to learn that in my course of study I never played a single note of an excerpt or concerto for my teacher. Yet, I felt that I was taught a sufficient command of the instrument, and a thorough enough understanding of musical expression, to be able to play a great deal of music convincingly even at sight. “
“Because I was not taught someone else’s exact interpretation of four or eight bars of music I am eternally grateful to have been given the tools by Mr. de Lancie to “Do my own thing,” so to speak, for the music. I am still very reluctant to use, in teaching, orchestral music or solo music to address fundamental instrumental or musical deficiencies and don’t like to belabor great music by endless repetition until it begins to lose its flavor and non-verbal meaning. From Mr. de Lancie I gained the sense that music is a living Art subject to re-thinking and reinterpretation, and, for any player, this perspective is essential to maintaining life in one’s playing.
Although he was an interpreter of deep conviction, Mr. de Lancie told me that he frequently changed his interpretations, if he felt so inclined, after some thought.”
“…But for now, I hope that this tribute to my teacher will inspire those who choose to pursue the oboe, and will serve to acknowledge to him my deep appreciation for his efforts.
Because of him, I will try to retain my dream, and all that it suggests, for as long as I play music on the oboe, and I am grateful for having had a teacher who gave me a sense of the limitless wonder of music and its beautiful, unanswerable questions in addition to all the answers that have served me so well. “
Richard Woodhams, principal oboe of the Philadelphia Orchestra wrote a tribute after his teacher, John de Lancie passed away. I think one of the most important notes about the tribute is the emphasis on the basics: long tones, Barret melodies (transposed), other basic concepts. It’s interesting that he never worked on a concerto or excerpts.
Bio of Richard Woodhams (taken from Philadelphia Orchestra website)
Since his appointment by Eugene Ormandy as principal oboe of The Philadelphia Orchestra in 1977, Richard Woodhams has earned a reputation as being among the world’s foremost oboists. He studied at the Curtis Institute of Music with the late John de Lancie, Mr. Woodhams’s distinguished predecessor in the Orchestra and former director of that school.
Mr. Woodhams has appeared as soloist on numerous occasions throughout the United States in a variety of repertoire. He has performed and recorded Richard Strauss’s Oboe Concerto with Wolfgang Sawallisch, and has also recorded two concertos by the 18th-century astronomer, composer, and oboist William Herschel with Philadelphia’s Mozart Orchestra. Mr. Woodhams gave the United States premiere of Helios, an oboe concerto by Thea Musgrave, with Philadelphia’s Orchestra 2001, and the world premiere of Bernard Rands’s Concertino with the Network for New Music. He has also appeared with pianists Christoph Eschenbach, André Watts, and Emanuel Ax, violinist Itzhak Perlman, and the Guarneri, Tokyo, and Shanghai string quartets, among other notable musicians. Most recently, he premiered chamber works by Ned Rorem, Ellen Taaffe Zwilich, and Chuck Holdeman, as well as a work for oboe and string quartet by William Bolcom with the Guarneri Quartet. The Bolcom work was commissioned by the Chamber Music Society of Philadelphia.
Mr. Woodhams is a member of the faculties of Curtis and Temple University, where he teaches both the oboe and woodwind orchestral literature; many of his pupils occupy positions in prominent orchestras both in the United States and abroad. He has received The Philadelphia Orchestra’s C. Hartman Kuhn Award, given to “a musician who has shown both musical ability and enterprise of such character as to enhance the musical standards and reputation of The Philadelphia Orchestra,” and also holds the Orchestra’s first endowed chair, funded by the Samuel S. Fels Foundation.
Mr. Woodhams also serves as principal oboe of the World Orchestra for Peace, founded by Sir Georg Solti in 1995, the 50th anniversary of the birthday of the United Nations. Under its current music director, Valery Gergiev, he has performed recently in Europe, Russia, and the Far East. In September 2007, he will participate for the second time as a judge in the International Oboe Competition of the Bavarian Radio.
Born into a musical family in Palo Alto, California, Mr. Woodhams began his orchestral career as principal oboe of the Saint Louis Symphony, and he has also played temporarily in the same capacity with the Chicago Symphony and the Metropolitan Opera Orchestra. He is a regular participant in the Aspen and La Jolla music festivals, and was a soloist on The Philadelphia Orchestra’s 2005 spring tour of the Far East. Mr. Woodhams is a resident of the Overbrook Farms section of Philadelphia.
