Oboe Concerto (2019)

for Solo Oboe and Ensemble

Duration: 30 min

Instrumentation

3 Percussion, Piano, Solo Oboe, Strings (6.5.4.3.2)*

*Larger string sections also acceptable

Program Note

I think of my Oboe Concerto as a costume shop, dressing up the soloist as an assortment of distinct characters, some familiar, some new. The piece begins with the type of oboe playing that I find most traditionally idiomatic, displaying the instrument’s ability to float with melodic simplicity above a complex, churning accompaniment. In the second movement, the oboe embraces its more incisive timbres, transforming into a darting, obnoxious bug. Movement III, “Scene”, roughly takes the form of a da capo aria, contrasting vulnerability and turbulence. The Scherzo at times paints the oboe as an alert athlete, at other times as someone trying to overcome a dizzying stupor. The fifth movement is more personal, a memory of the sort of tuneful pieces I wrote for Virginia when we first met. In the final movement, the oboe steals the toccata genre from its rightful owner, the keyboard family – replacing the “touch” of the keys with the touch of the tongue to the reed

Performances/Recordings

Premiere Performance: (12/2019) Virginia McDowell, oboe; Students at Rice University

Premiere Recording: (1/2021) Virginia McDowell, oboe; Students at Rice University