Composers and Concertos

With my house completely barren but this single computer, I thought I’d take a note to jot down my thoughts.

Few composers wrote as eloquently and gracefully for the  oboe as did Samuel Barber. (I’d have to say Strauss and Ravel as the only two others who did on a regular occasion.) His juicy, lyrical solos from such works as “A School for Scandal”, “Violin Concerto”, amongst others are unparalleled in beauty and grace. It is a tragedy to all oboists that he died writing an oboe concerto, leaving us behind the single movement which was reworked into the solo Canzonetta; a piece so charged with emotional struggle and turmoil and yet so innocent in nature, almost naivete. He did however write the Capricorn Concerto, and although it is not specificly an oboe-only concerto, it does give us another fine example of his love for the oboe. Perhaps it was his dedication to and appreciation of Tabuteau that surged his creative energies. Barber was even quoted as saying “I like to give my best themes to the oboe.”

Beethoven also died with an incomplete oboe concerto in hand, which was later realized and performed back in 2003. I have not heard this, but I’m sure it will not be long before someone decides to record it. I’ve always wondered what a “Beethoven oboe concerto” would sound like, and I imagined it similar to a Lebrun concerto, perhaps with the lyricism of his 5th Piano concerto. Wouldn’t that be something to dream about?

Another composer I would have loved to have seen an oboe concerto produced from
is Schubert. His great oboe solos from Symphony 7 “The Great” and “Unfinished” gives me a feeling that he would have written something dark, dramatic, and technically challenging.

Which composers would you have liked to have seen an oboe concerto from? What do you think it would have sounded like?