The Dolci Show

Sonata #3 for Oboe and Piano (2021)                                            Bill Douglas (1944-)Cantando Pastorale Chick: Hommage to Chick Corea Bill Douglas is a Canadian-born bassoonist, pianist and composer who  lives in Boulder, Colorado. He has toured and recorded with the clarinetist Richard Stoltzman since they met in college (Yale, class of 1969). Douglas has written that “(his) basic philosophy of music is that it can be helpful to the world. It can evoke such positive emotions as compassion, tenderness, strength, nobility, upliftedness, and joy.”Bill Douglas provided a performance note: “Do not swing any of this music. Always sing expressively with long, expansive phrasing. Feel free to change slurs, particularly awkward downward ones, in order to make passages easier.” Thanks, Bill. That helped. This recording is  unedited,  including two squeaks from the oboe and Viva's satisfied chuckle at the end.Scores and recordings of Bill Douglas' work, including a wonderful CD of vocal rhythm exercises, are available at https://billdouglas.cc. His extensive output of compositions  which feature  oboe, English horn or bassoon is published by TrevcoMusic.com.photo by Fran Hodes, 2023

1. Allègre — 2. Très calme — 3. VitePierre Onfroy de Bréville (1861-1949) was a French composer, teacher and critic and a friend of Franck, Debussy and Ravel. His music was elegantly crafted but has not been performed much since his death. His Sonatine for Oboe and Piano (1927) could be the sound track for an imaginary Parisian art exhibit. It first paints a jaunty tapestry of interwoven colors and textures in the spirit of Georges Seurat's Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte*.  The second movement seems like a serene interlude, perhaps contemplating one of Claude Monet's paintings from his floating studio on the Seine. The final movement, Vite  is a burst of kinetic exuberance in the spirit of a music hall poster by Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec. *Property of The Art Institute of Chicago. Featured in Sundays in the Park with George, a musical by Stephen Sondheim

William Alwyn's Oboe SonataWilliam Alwyn (1905-1985) was a respected English composer, teacher and conductor. He began his musical career as a virtuoso flutist, attended the Royal Academy of Music, and at the age of nineteen he was appointed professor of composition. Alwyn composed dozens of widely performed concert pieces and the musical scores of more than 70 films, including a classic Hollywood swashbuckler, “The Crimson Pirate,” starring Burt Lancaster.   Alwyn's Oboe Sonata was published in 1934. It has three movements: I. Moderato e grazioso II. Andantino III. Allegro (quasi waltz tempo)The origami flower in the accompanying photo was created by Yukie Echizen.

Sue Yoast and Viva Knight became close friends in 2001 when both were newly widowed. Sue was diagnosed with scleroderma, a rare and incurable autoimmune disease, in 2008. She remained valiantly upbeat to the end, a dear friend and a loyal fan of Dolci. We will miss her. Her obituary is at Mykeeper.com.Autumn Night is a new composition by Eric Ewazen , written in memory of oboist Judith Ricker and pianist Joseph Werner of the Eastman faculty, who both died this year.

Felix Mendelssohn, Song Without Words, opus 85 No. 40, arranged for piano and oboe d'amore by David Walter. Fiber art in photo is by Martha Mae Jones.

Concerto for Oboe  (Piano reduction) by John Williams (b. 1932)Prelude: Exuberantly, BroadlyPastorale: Moderato, with NostalgiaCommedia: Playfully, JoyfullyJohn Williams is a distinguished American composer, best known for his film scores. In 2005 the American Film Institute selected Williams's score for Star Wars as the greatest film score of all time. He has won 25 Grammy Awards and received 52 Academy Award nominations and 5 Academy Awards. He is also a composer and conductor of concert music. He wrote this concerto in 2011 for Keisuke Wakao, the principal oboist of the Boston Pops Orchestra, of which Williams was music director for many years. Some composers try to create excitement by forcing the players to struggle with technical difficulties.* Not so John Williams, and certainly not his Oboe Concerto. Williams' concerto requires practice and precision from the oboist, but mostly it demands fluency, energy and expressiveness in the moment. Its phrases fall naturally within a human breath. The oboe part is written in a range where it can produce a nuanced timbre, can start and end notes precisely, and has a speech-like potential to engage the listener's emotions. The piano reduction is precisely notated to reproduce the complex ensemble playing and rich sonorities of the Boston strings without risking injury or public humiliation to the pianist. He lets both players' hands move efficiently without straining for uncomfortably large intervals.This generous gift to the oboists and pianists of the world shows how well Williams can cast spells, play games, evoke moods and tell stories. It is a genial piece, composed in a language of beautiful, logically connected sounds, and with the sweet smile of reason. _________________________________Essa-Pekka Salonen stated this in his comments to an audience at Hertz Hall, Berkeley, California, c. 2012. Fascination with virtuosic musical performance as a form of heroism has been part of Western music at least since the early nineteenth century when great soloists like Paganini and Liszt began to be idolized in the press along with popular heroes like Cook, Nelson and Napoleon. _________________________________Photo by May Phan

Sonata for Oboe and Piano, 1938                           Paul Hindemith (1895-1963)Münter (Lively)Sehr langsam-Lebhaft (Very Slow-Fast)During his frantic last year in Germany before escaping with his family to Switzerland, Paul Hindemith wrote several important works, including his Oboe Sonata. Its first movement is quick and frisky, using overlapping 2-4 and 3-8 meters like the combined gaits of a little girl and her big brother hurrying hand in hand into an unknown forest. Like any a good Gothic story, its sunny beginning and end contrast with darkly threatening episodes. The harmony progresses in disorienting twists from unfamiliar to scary to downright weird. The second movement starts very slowly as a dreamy lullaby in slow 3-4 time, accompanied by a fantastically ornate accompaniment in eighth, sixteenth, thirty-second and sixty-fourth note subdivisions. The lullaby melody breaks into headlong flight as a lively 3-8 fugue, then pauses to hide, dreams, and resumes its running-away (fugue). The second escape winds through a cadence, long-winded enough to rival a Beethoven symphony, and leads us at last to safety.

John Steinmetz (b. 1951) grew up in Oakland, California, attended the California Institute of the Arts and was swept into Los Angeles' freelance whirlpool as a bassoonist and composer. He now teaches at UCLA and lives in Altadena. He wrote about this composition: “Many operas start optimistically but this piece imagines the opposite trajectory, beginning in pessimism or depression and working toward a happy ending... The five movements of the Suite might be scenes or musical numbers drawn from a longer opera... Whether it's a drama between people or a struggle within a single person are questions for the audience's imagination.”The movement titles are AriaDanceRecitativeAriaApotheosis                                                                                    photo © 2010 Charlotte Castro

Six Studies in English Folk-Song by Ralph Vaughan WilliamsI Adagio, "Lovely on the Water" II Andante sostenuto, "Spurn Point"III Larghetto, "Van Diemen's Land"IV Lento, "She Borrowed Some of her Mother's Gold"V Andante tranquillo, "The Lady and the Dragoon"VI Allegro vivace, "As I walked over London Bridge" When Ralph Vaughan Williams (1872-1958) was a music student in London he became fascinated with rural English traditional songs, which then existed only in oral tradition and were gradually being forgotten. He visited rural churches and musicians, learned their songs by ear, wrote them out in music notation, and enlisted other musicians to help him save the music from extinction. He wrote this piece in 1926 for cello and piano, and later transcribed it for many other solo instruments, noting that his aim was that the songs be “treated with love.”"Lovely on the Water"  is a dialogue of a sailor with his love, before he is sent off to war. "Spurn Point" is a dangerous spit at the entrance to the Humber estuary from the North Sea, where a vessel stranded and its captain refused help from the life station there, sinking on the next tide and losing all aboard."Van Diemen's Land" is a cautionary lament of poachers who have been transported to a penal colony on Tasmania.The complete words for "She Borrowed Some of her Mother's Gold" have not been recovered, but the story does seem to have ended badly for her."The Lady and the Dragoon"  tells of a poor but valiant soldier who marries above his station yet earns his honor by rescuing his new father-in-law from the king's soldiers."As I walked over London Bridge" is the overheard tale of a pretty maid whose lover, though of royal blood, is to be hanged with a golden chain for having stolen and sold sixteen of the King's deer.

Three Romances, opus 22                                                   Clara Schumann (1819-1896)Andante molto — Allegretto — Leidenschaftlich schnellClara Schumann probably wrote her Three Romances for Christmas, 1849, at the same time her husband Robert wrote his Three Romances for Oboe and Piano, but like many of her compositions they were not published immediately.  As the sole family breadwinner after Robert became ill, Clara was obliged to devote most of her time and energy to her career as a virtuoso pianist. She performed the Romances for King George V of Hanover in 1853 (he loved them) with the violinist Joseph Joachim, and finally published them in 1856 with a dedication to Joachim. They mirror Robert's Three Romances in form; though there is no published oboe version, they suit it beautifully, suggesting that they might have been originally intended for that instrument.

Fratres,  ("Brothers") by the Estonian composer Arvo Pärt (1935–), is a set of nine variations on a slow, sustained melody that suggests liturgical chants of Estonian Orthodox religion. The composition uses three parallel voices, one high, one middle and one low, each with a distinctive tonality and rhythmic texture. The variations are six to nine measures long, the pitches dictated by an unchanging mathematical algorithm that generates variety and a sense of calm progression within a unified framework. Each variation ends in a percussive two-measure "refuge," used like the bell in a group meditation, signaling that the participants will pause, reflect and move on. Pärt refers to his compositional technique as tintinnabuli, Latin for the little bells carried in a procession.Fratres was first composed in 1977 as an instrumental piece for chamber orchestra with variable instrumentation. In 1980 Pärt scored it for piano and violin. It has become widely popular in concert music, in over a dozen films and documentaries, and in recordings for guided meditation. From 2011 to 2018, Pärt was the world's most performed living composer.Dolci thanks Gloria Cheng, our friend and mentor, for her invaluable help in adapting Fratres for piano and oboe and in preparing our performance. Our changes from the published score for violin and piano retain the original pitches and rhythms as best we can. Our occasional octave transpositions and instrumentation changes reflect technical and metabolic necessity.

Sonatine (1905)                                                                         Maurice Ravel (1875-1937)Arranged for oboe and piano by David Walter 1.    Modéré (moderate)2.    Mouvement de menuet (Minuet tempo)3.    Animé (animated) Ravel opens each movement of his Sonatine with a two-note interval that establishes a precise mood with its color and rhythm. The first movement, marked Modéré, opens with a tentative-sounding descending fourth – F# to C#. This is an emotionally laden interval for Ravel. For example, in his opera “L'enfant et les sortilêges” (“The child and the magic spells”), he sets the word “maman” to this interval as a frightened child cries out for his mother. The second movement, a minuet, opens with a stable, decisive interval, a rising fifth. The minuet form hints of a magnificently costumed ball in a palace long forgotten, like Ravel's earlier “Pavane for a Dead Princess.”The final movement, marked Animé and then Agité, opens with the original notes of the first movement, but in reverse order: a rising fourth, C# to F#. It is a questing rising fourth, leaping forward. Between forays into mysterious realms, the melody rocks indecisively, its meter stretching into four- and five-note bar lengths. A second version of the two-note motto emerges, now back in its original shape as a falling fourth. 

Chansonette                                                                                               Sir Hamilton Harty (1879-1941)Sir Herbert Hamilton Harty, born in Northern Ireland, had a successful career as organist, conductor, accompanist and composer. He moved to London in 1900 and became known for his skillful accompaniments of such vocalists and instrumentalists as Fritz Kreisler. He composed constantly throughout his career, and published  Chansonette as the second of Three Minatures for Oboe and Piano in 1911.From 1932 to 1935, he was conductor of the London Symphony Orchestra and spent the rest of his life guest conducting, despite the loss of his right eye from a brain tumor in 1936.Fantasy Pieces for Oboe and Piano, op. 2                                               Carl Nielsen (1865-1931)RomanceHumoresqueCarl Nielsen offered the following description in a program note for his 1889 Fantasy Pieces: “The first slow piece gives the oboe the opportunity to sing out its notes quite as beautifully as this instrument can. The second is more humorous, roguish, with an undertone of Nordic nature and forest rustlings in the moonlight.” Both pieces suggest fanciful tales in the spirit of Nielsen's Danish compatriot Hans Christian Andersen.

Each of Felix Mendelssohn's eight books of Songs Without Words is a cycle of six short, distinctive pieces in song form for solo piano. This arrangement of his Book 3 for oboe and piano is by the eminent French oboist and composer David Walter.Mendelssohn's friend Marc-André Souchay once asked for permission to set his own poems to the Songs Without Words. Mendelssohn refused, and explained: “What the music I love expresses to me is not too indefinite to put into words, but on the contrary, too definite.” Song number 6 was given the title Duetto by Mendelssohn. It was composed in Frankfurt in June 1836, soon after he had met his future wife.Book III, opus 38 (1836-37)Con motoAllegro non troppoPresto e molto vivaceAndanteAgitatoDuetto. Andante con moto

Marin Marais (1656-1728) was a composer and gamba player whose job was to provide bedtime music for King Louis XIV,  Les folies d'Espagne was a popular song on which Marais composed a set of 31 variations for this purpose, and published as part of his second book of “Pieces de viole” in 1701.  This version was arranged by Jennifer Paull. 

Sonata for Oboe and Piano (2009)                                                Peter Hope (1930 - ) ModeratoVivace Allegro Peter Hope's Oboe Sonata opens with an elegaic theme that he weaves through the entire composition. He transforms it through increasingly lively dance forms, until it becomes a jitterbug over a boogie-woogie bass. This sonata challenges the performers with intricate rhythms and harmonies, and rewards the audience with a stream of singable, danceable, memorable music. Hope wrote title and theme music for a great many popular British radio and TV programs, making his music more familiar than his name to the British public. About the year 2000 he returned to writing concert music. He was commissioned in 2009 to write a tribute to the English oboist Lady Evelyn Barbirolli (1911-2008), who had played in the first symphony orchestra concert Peter Hope ever attended. The outcome of this commission was his Sonata for Oboe and Piano.

Three Romances, opus 94, by Robert Schumann (1810-1856) Nicht schnell — Einfach, innig — Nicht schnell Three Romances are a set of instrumental love songs Robert Schumann wrote in 1849 as a Christmas present to his young bride Clara. They open with confessional intimacy, the oboe personifying Robert, the piano Clara. At first the couple sing tentative questions and answers, but in the second Romance the voices become agitated as they interrupt each other in a staggered rhythm. In the last Romance, the lovers declare love in a recurring unison motive, but Clara's piano answers each unison with a solo cadence, sadly prefiguring for us her long life alone after Robert's suicide. 

Today's compositions have been arranged for oboe d'amore and piano. Most were composed for other instruments, but Debussy designated oboe d'amore (on the top staff of the score!) in his orchestration of “Gigues” for Images for Orchestra.The modern oboe d'amore is a slightly larger and lower-pitched version of the modern oboe, with a globular bell. These differences from the standard oboe lend it a mellower, less edgy tone that blends nicely with other instruments and with the human voice. Its native pitch of “A” below middle “C” places it in the sweet spot among melody instruments.  1      “Andante sostenuto” (originally for solo piano) from Songs Without Words          by Felix Mendelssohn (Germany, 1809-1847)2      “Adagio” (originally for solo piano) from Songs Without Words3      “Salut d'Amour” by Edward Elgar (England, 1857-1934) (originally for violin          and piano)4      “Arietta” by S. M. Maykapar (Ukraine, 1867-1938) (originally for solo piano)5      “Gigues” from Images by Claude Debussy (France, 1862-1918) (originally for          oboe d'amore and orchestra,)#1-2 were arranged by David Walter and published by Billaudot.#3-5 were arranged by Robert Rainford and published by Forton Music

The oboe d'amore is the gentle mezzo-soprano member of the oboe family. It was developed in the 17th century, flourished as a solo instrument in the time of Bach and Handel, and was mostly ignored by the Romantic composers. Debussy and Ravel specified oboe d'amore for successful orchestral pieces, spurring the development of modern instruments with similar acoustics to their Baroque predecessors, but with key mechanisms similar to the modern oboe. “The Swan” was choreographed by Mikhail Fokine in 1905 for Anna Pavlova, who performed it over 4,000 times. Today's compositions were  arranged for modern oboe d'amore and piano by Robert Rainford and published by Forton Music. 1.    “Qui Sedes” from Mass in B-minor by J. S. Bach (1685-1750)2.    “Largo” from Serse by George Frideric Handel (1685-1759)3.    “Voi, che sapete” from The Marriage of Figaro by W. A. Mozart (1756-1791)4.    “Traumerei” from Kinderszenen by Robert Schumann (1810-1856)5.    “The Swan” from Carnival of the Animals by Camille Saint-Saëns (1835-1921)6.    “Anitra's Dance” from Peer Gynt by Edvard Grieg(1843-1907)

The story continues. The miller-maid asks the young miller for the green ribbon by which his lute hangs, and he gives it to her, still imagining she loves him. Before he can summon the courage to tell her his love, a horn blows, dogs yap in chromatic cacophony, and a bragging, noisy hunter gallops down to the mill (all described in the text and echoed in the piano part (“The Hunter”). The miller's response, “Jealousy and Pride” is a hissy fit worthy of grand opera. The poor fellow nonetheless loses the miller-maid to his noisy rival (“Withered Flowers”). After a long dialogue in which the brook tries but fails to reassure him that better times will come to him in the springtime (“The Miller and the Brook”), he throws himself into the millpond, and the brook rocks him gently into endless sleep.These are today's song titles, as translated by Michèle Lester. 13. With the Lute's Green Ribbon 14. The Huntsman 15. Jealousy and Pride 16. The Beloved Color 17. The Wicked Color 18. Withered Flowers 19. The Miller and the Brook 20. The Brook's Lullaby 

Die Schöne Müllerin                         Franz Peter Schubert (1797-1828)(“The Pretty Miller-Maid”)           When the Austrian composer Franz Schubert wrote this song cycle he was chronically ill, frustrated in love, and knew he would soon be dead. He was fascinated, however, by Goethe's belief that experiencing the beauty of nature would purify his soul. This cycle of 20 songs is drawn from a long narrative poem by Schubert's German contemporary Wilhelm Müller (1794-1827). We will present it in two episodes, beginning with Songs 1-12.In the story, an eager young miller has just completed his apprenticeship and sets off to find new work (“Wandering”). The water's lively sound, which flows and burbles in the piano part through most of the songs, urges the youth to follow the stream (“Where To?”). He comes to a mill (“Halt!”) and is hired by its owner, who has pretty daughter. The young man falls in love at first sight. He works hard to impress them (“After the Day's Work”). He sings to the brook, but not to her, of flowers, stars and dewdrops. She sits trustingly with him by the brook (“Rain of Tears”). He imagines she shares his love (“Mine!”). Unable to tell her how he feels, he hangs his lute on the wall. Untouched, its strings vibrate quetly in the air (“Pause”). These are today's song titles, as translated by Michèle Lester. 1.    Wandering2.    Where to?3.    Halt!4.    Thanks to the Brook5.    After the Day's Work6.    Curiosity7.    Impatience8.    Morning Greeting9.    The Miller's Flowers10.  Rain of Tears11.  Mine12.  Pause In Episode 25 we will present songs 13-20. 

Sonatina, opus 100                                                      Antonin Dvorak (1841-1904)        I. Allegro risoluto        II. Larghetto       III. Scherzo        IV. Finale Dvorak wrote this Sonatina for his teenaged son and daughter while living in America with his family for three years in the 1890s to study American folk music, with a goal of helping to create an American style of classical music. During his summers in the Czech-speaking prairie town of Spillville, Iowa, he composed four concert works on American themes: the symphony "From the New World," the "American" string quartet, the Cello Concerto, and this Sonatina. It opens with a quote from a Gold Rush song, "My Darling Clementine". The second movement is based on Native American chants and dances the family heard on a visit to Minnehaha Falls. The Scherzo suggests city park carousel music. The Finale, though a polka, is in the spirit of another rural hoe-down. This adaptation for oboe and piano was arranged by Dolci to fit within the range of an oboe and the respirational needs of an oboist. 

Minuet from Suite Bergamasque (1890-1905)                Claude Debussy (1862-1918) In 1889, Claude Debussy, already an accomplished and innovative composer, heard Javanese gamelan music at the Exposition Universelle in Paris, and soon changed Western music by demonstrating how music could be structured in scales and rhythms far removed from the rules then taught at the Paris Conservatoire. This piece was written for piano solo and arranged for oboe and harp or piano by the harpist Susan Jolles and the oboist Bert Lucarelli. Sonata for Oboe and Piano (1921)                           Camille Saint-Saëns (1835-1921) Camille Saint-Saëns wrote this joyful oboe sonata in a year of sadness at the end of his life, self-exiled in Algiers. Each of its three movements is a tone poem with its own mood and locale. The first movement, a Barcarolle, paints a watery scene. Opening calmly, the tempo increases like an afternoon sea breeze, then returns to calmness. The second movement suggests a solitary shepherd sounding a horn call across a magnificent valley, then piping a lilting Siciliano and closing with a farewell horn call. The finale is a Fandango, with sounds of frenzied castanets and the stamping boots of Spanish dancers.  

Prélude et Valse lente (1886)                                Marie de Grandval (1828-1907)Marie, Vicomptesse de Grandval, was an accomplished French composer, and a generous supporter of other composers. To avoid scandalizing her titled family she published mostly under pseudonyms and little of her work is now available. She dedicated this Prélude and Slow Waltz to her friend Georges Gillet of the Paris Opera, who was especially renowned for his beautiful tone and expressive playing on the cor Anglais. Grandval's gratitude to her teacher Chopin is made clear when a Mazurka, not a trio, pops up in the middle of her waltz. This modern edition is by Bruce Gbur for Prairie Dawg Press. Variations on a Theme of Joseph Haydn (1968)         Hendrik Andriessen (1892-1981) Hendrik Andriessen was a prominent Dutch composer and organist. His family populated the Netherlands with excellent composers and musicians throughout the 20th century. This piece for cor Anglais and piano is based on a clever, syncopated theme from the trio of  Haydn's Piano Sonata #26. It retains Haydn's genial spirit while transforming the theme with rhythms and harmonies of his own time. The cartoon is by Gerard Hoffnung.

Songs Without Words by Felix Mendelssohn (1809-1847)  Each of Felix Mendelssohn's eight books of Songs Without Words is a cycle of six short, distinctive pieces in song form for solo piano. This arrangement of his Book 2 for oboe and piano is by the eminent French oboist and composer David Walter.Mendelssohn was probably the first composer to use the title “Songs Without Words.” His  friend Marc-André Souchay once asked for permission to set his own poems to the Songs Without Words. Mendelssohn refused and explained: “What the music I love expresses to me is not too indefinite to put into words, but on the contrary, too definite.”  Book II, opus 30 (1833-34)7. Andante espressivo8. Allegro di molto9. Adagio non troppo10. Agitato e con fuoco11. Andante gracioso12. Venetianisches Gondollied  

Mikhail Ivanovich Glinka (1804-1857) was the first Russian composer to earn international fame in the world of European classical music. His work reflected the early Romantic icons of his era – he admired Berlioz, Bellini and Mendelssohn. He traveled throughout Europe and visited Liszt. He studied Russian liturgical and folk melodies and incorporated them into his writing, beginning with his second opera, Ruslan and Ludmila (1842). Ruslan and Ludmila is based on an epic fairy tale by Pushkin. Set in medieval Kiev and mythical realms, it tells of the abduction of Ludmila and her rescue by her suitor Ruslan, with the aid of a gigantic talking head, a kindly wizard, and a great deal of stage magic. In Dolci's performance the transcription of the opera score for oboe and piano is by G. Konrada.Ludmila's Cavatina from Act 1At Ruslan and Ludmila's wedding feast, Ludmila tells her father she is afraid bad things are about to happen. She has no idea. A crash of thunder, a blinding flash, the stage goes dark, and when the lights come up she has vanished, abducted by the giant Chernomor. Ruslan sets off to rescue her.Dances from Act 3In the mad sorceress Naina's castle, captive maidens perform exotic dances to distract the knights who are searching for Ludmila. I: Overture II: March of ChernomorIII: Turkish DanceIV: Arabic DanceV: Lezginka (Georgian Dance)The Mariinsky Ballet has published a video of these dances, conducted by Valery Gergiev, at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RYqjQiFgn9g. 

At the age of 20, Johannes Brahms (1833-1897) lived with Robert and Clara Schumann in Düsseldorf, helping to care for their children in return for lessons in composition. Brahms wrote “Mondnacht” in that year, using the same text as Schumann's “Mondnacht,” from more than a decade earlier. Robert praised Brahms in his writing and influenced his own publisher to print the song, launching Brahms as a composer. After composing his fourth and last symphony in 1884, Brahms devoted the rest of his career mainly to solo piano pieces, chamber music and songs. Mondnacht (Moonlit Night, 1853)     Five Songs, op. 107 (1886-1888) #1. To the Haughty Woman       Your heart: do you even have one? #2. Salamander       A bad girl throws a salamander into a fire. A cool devil,       though, he thrives on hot love.#3. The Girl Speaks      She speaks to a swallow, asking about her new husband.#4. Catkins      Pussywillows welcome the springtime. I break one off       and tuck it in my old hat.#5. Girl's Song       In the spinning shop, boys come to woo the girls. I weep       because I was not chosen.Gypsy Songs,  op. 103 (1888) #6 Three Little Roses in a Row

Green Grass Snake (from Serpent Music, 1977)                          Michael Kibbe (1945- )“A sunlit emerald shimmering to tease the eye; a parting of the grass—this ribbon passes by.” Kibbe wrote this music for a performance piece. “It was premiered in Los Angeles with the composer playing the oboe. A group of interpretive dances writhed, snakelike, across the floor around the two instrumentalists.” The Grasshopper (from Two Insect Pieces,1934)              Benjamin Britten (1913-1976)At the age of 21, Benjamin Britten wrote Two Insect Pieces for his friend, the oboist Sylvia Spencer, and played it with her privately. Its first public performance was after both their deaths, in a memorial service for Spencer. That Mockingbird (from On Holt Avenue, 2006)                            Jenni Brandon (1977- )“Written for the oboist Jennifer Mitchell, this piece portrays life ‘On Holt Avenue' in Los Angeles, California as told by the composer.”  Mockingbirds are garrulous, accurate mimics of other birds. They fool nobody, however, because they are way too loud and have no editor. Their nonstop recitals are strings of unrelated sound bites, like an iPod running amok. Gardens (1975)                                                                              Peter Schickele (1935- )  1. Morning  2. Noon   3. NightPeter Schickele is a prolific composer, musician, author and satirist. He writes musical parodies in the persona of P.D.Q. Bach. For other compositions he uses his own name. In this piece he shows his reflective side and his skill as a musical colorist.All quotes are from the composers. Internet links to their biographies are:https://www.michaelkibbe.comhttps://www.britannica.com/biography/Benjamin-Brittenhttps://jennibrandon.comhttps://www.schickele.com/psbio.htm

Sonata for Oboe and Piano (2004)                                            Bill Douglas (1944-)Cantabile Tenderly Singing, Playful Bill Douglas is a Canadian-born bassoonist, pianist and composer who now lives in Boulder, Colorado. He toured and recorded for thirty years with the classical clarinetist Richard Stoltzman and with his own jazz ensembles. Among the musicians he says influenced him are J. S. Bach, Bill Evans, Keith Jarrett, Josquin Desprez, William Byrd, Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau, Ralph Vaughan Williams and Ali Akbar Khan. He wrote this sonata for the oboist Alan Vogel. He has written that “(his) basic philosophy of music is that it can be helpful to the world. It can evoke such positive emotions as compassion, tenderness, strength, nobility, upliftedness, and joy.”Bill Douglas provided this program note in the score: “The first and third movements follow the standard bebop jazz form: a somewhat complex theme played in unison, followed by an improvisation on the chord progression of the theme and then a return to the theme with variations. In this case, however, the ‘improvisation' sections are completely written out. The third movement was influenced by West African rhythms.” Scores and recordings of Bill Douglas' work, including a wonderful CD of vocal rhythm exercises, are available at https://billdouglas.cc. photo ©Lefteris Padavos 2016

Sonata for Oboe and Piano (2009)                             Daniel Baldwin (1978-)I.              Prairie Song II.             Trail of TearsIII.           Spirit of the PrairieOutside the White House this June 2020 Federal troops dispersed protesters who were attempting to topple an equestrian statue of President Andrew Jackson, a self-proclaimed “Indian Fighter” who signed and enforced the Indian Removal Act of 1830 under which Native Americans of the Southeastern states who would not end their tribal affiliations were forced to leave their ancestral homes and march over 1,000 miles to prairies west of the Mississippi River, with devastating loss of life along the way. Their route is still called “The Trail of Tears.” Daniel Baldwin was born in Blackwell, OK, a town built by Andrew Jackson Blackwell in the 1890s on land formerly part of the Cherokee Reservation. Baldwin's program note: "The first movement conveys the image of a person standing in a wide open field of grass, staring off into the horizon at a spectacular sunrise. The movement is about the sheer beauty of the Great Plains. The second movement is from the perspective of the American Indians. Fear, doubt, uncertainty and sadness ... The final movement, a Native American dance, sweeps one back into the open field, gazing into the Oklahoma sunset." 

Concerto on Themes of Domenico Cimarosa          Arthur Benjamin (1893-1960)I.              IntroduzioneII.             Allegro III.           SicilianaIV.          Allegro giustoThe Australian composer Arthur Benjamin compiled four of Domenico Cimarosa's  sonatas into this oboe concerto in 1942. Cimarosa, a Neapolitan contemporary of Mozart, was best known for his comic operas. He also wrote hundreds of witty single-movement harpsichord sonatas. But Cimarosa backed the losing side in a revolution against the monarchy of Naples. He was imprisoned and then exiled to Venice, where he died at the age of 51. Italian Dance                                                                 Madeleine Dring (1923-1977)Madeleine Dring was an English actress, pianist and composer. She was fluent in the idioms of jazz, pop and musical theater. She received a privileged education and became a skilled classical composer as a student of Ralph Vaughan Williams. She was influenced by the work of Arthur Benjamin, George Gershwin, Cole Porter and Francis Poulenc. Her father, an amateur pianist, was a skilled improviser who encouraged her use of “wrong-note humour” in which she added unexpected notes to conventional chords. While still a student she met the soon-to-be-famous oboist Roger Lord to accompany him for an audition. They married, she wrote many pieces for him, and he in turn tirelessly promoted the publication and performance of her compositions after her early death. 

Sonata in G Minor, BWV 1030b                      Johann Sebastian Bach (1685-1750) Andante — Siciliano — Presto Bach's G-minor Sonata for Oboe and Keyboard was probably first performed in a coffee house for a weekly meeting around 1730 of the Leipzig Collegium Musicum, a music society which Bach directed at the time. His score gives distinct personalities, dignified, flirtatious or childlike, to each musical line, one at a time for the oboe and two or three at once for the keyboard player. The Andante movement is a trio sonata with increasingly intricate counterpoint. The Siciliano movement is a slow dance in 6/8 meter, with elaborate ornamentation around a swaying melody. The Presto has two sections. It starts as a quick fugue ("chase") in which an opening theme chases after its imitations through a thicket of counter-melodies in different keys. The finale is a hopping dance in 12/8, a gigue in (of course) jig time. The jig has a rollicking bass near the end that might well have inspired “The Teddy Bears' Picnic:” “If you go down in the woods today, you're sure of a big surpriseIf you go down in the woods today, you'd better go in disguiseFor every bear that ever there was Will gather there for certain because Today's the day the teddy bears have their picnic!” (lyrics ©Henry Hall, 1932)

3 Gymnopédies (1888)                              Erik Satie (1866-1925)3 Gnossiennes (1890)Satie attended the Paris Conservatoire, was expelled twice for ignoring musical rules, and thereafter went out of his way to offend the musical establishment. Following the motto of Charles Baudelaire that art should “épater (scandalize) les bourgeois”, the Gymnopédies and Gnossiennes refer to dances of naked men and boys as depicted in ancient Greek pottery and the murals of the Palace of Knossos in Crete. The Gnossiennes are written without bar lines to suggest a continuous flow of sound. Martha Graham, Diaghilev's Ballets Russes, Merce Cunningham and others choreographed dances based on this music. Satie was friendly with Debussy, Ravel, and the founders of Cubism and Dadaism. Hoping to call attention to Satie, Debussy orchestrated Gymnopédies #1 and #3, and Poulenc orchestrated Gnossienne #3. In all three arrangements an oboe plays the principal melodies. Photo by Soichi Sunami, 1927: Martha Graham Dancers performing Satie's Gnossienne. Source: Library of Congress

Ballade (1953) by Hendrik Andriessen (1892-1981)This is our lament for our country and for the black lives we are losing. Ballade commemorates the experience of the Dutch people under German Fascist occupation in World War II, and by extension, all victims of Fascism everywhere. The Nazis murdered three quarters of all Dutch Jews, and hundreds of thousands of Dutch Gypsies, resistance fighters, journalists, artists and the ordinary citizens who tried to protect them. Ballade tells their story without words, first in a traditional Jewish lamentation, then in the sounds of marching troops, aircraft engines, falling bombs, and a funeral march. The Nazis were afraid of this music. They imprisoned its composer, Hendrik Andriessen, and prohibited performing his compositions. We must not tolerate the drift of our country towards Fascism, for this is where it leads. Viva Knight and Ted Rust add our voices to the worldwide protest against the state-sanctioned murder of black people in the United States of America. We say their names:George FloydManuel EllisBreonna TaylorAhmaud ArberyTony McDadeDion Johnson. We deplore the loss of over 100,000 Americans, a disproportionate number of them black, due to our nation's failure to contain the coronavirus pandemic and to tolerate peaceful protest.For white people asking what they can do about racism in America, here is a response from Light Watkins: https://youtu.be/sjhz594Am6gphoto ©Christine Wu, 2020

Gabriel's Oboe                                                                     Ennio Morricone (1928 -)Ennio Morricone is a prolific Italian composer of film scores and concert music. This piece is from a scene in The Mission (1968) in which the central character, a missionary priest, plays his Baroque oboe for a band of Indians who have captured him in the Amazonian forest. His music persuades them to spare his life. Some oboe playing can have the opposite effect. Two Themes of Handel, opus 85a                                 Ernst Krenek (1900-1991)Andante -- AllegrettoErnst Krenek was an Austrian avant-garde composer of radically atonal music for the first half of his career. His work was denounced as “degenerate” by the Gestapo, forcing him to leave Austria. He emigrated to the U.S. in 1938. Following Stravinski's lead, he adopted an elegant neoclassical style for these settings of themes by George Frideric Handel.

Domenico Scarlatti, Keyboard Sonata in E Major Domenico Scarlatti, Keyboard Sonata in E minor Terry Riley, “Simone's Lullaby”Domenico Scarlatti (1685-1757) was born in Naples. His father was Alessandro Scarlatti, who had composed a series of successful operas in Naples and Rome. Domenico studied in Rome with the most respected musicians of his time and was considered a brilliant harpsichordist. He worked as a composer/musician in the courts of the Vatican, Lisbon and then, for the rest of his life, in Madrid, where he became harpsichord teacher to the future Queen of Spain. The vast majority of his compositions, over 500 short harpsichord sonatas, were written in Madrid towards the end of his life and were little known elsewhere in Europe until the early 20th century.Terry Riley (1935- ) is an American composer whose works are performed worldwide. His piece “in C” (1964) launched what became known as the Minimalist movement. He is an acknowledged master in the disciplines of classical Western composition, Indian classical music, film scoring and jazz. Simone's Lullaby, from Heaven's Ladder Book 7, was written for his granddaughter. He was born in Colfax, CA in 1935, lives in a small town in the northern Sierra Nevada foothills and continues to perform internationally. 

1. In beautiful May, when the buds opened, love opened up in my heart: when the birds all sang, I told you my desire and longing.2. Many flowers spring up from my tears, and a nightingale choir from my sighs: If you love me, I'll pick them all for you, and a nightingale will sing at your window.3. I used to love the rose, lily, dove and sun, joyfully: now I love only the little, the fine, the pure, the One: you are the source of them all.4. When I look in your eyes all my pain and woe fades: when I kiss your mouth I become whole: when I recline on your breast I am filled with heavenly joy: and when you say, 'I love you', I weep bitterly.5. I want to bathe my soul in the chalice of the lily, and the lily, ringing, will breathe a song of my beloved. The song will tremble and quiver, like the kiss of her mouth, which in a wondrous moment she gave me.6. In the Rhine, in the sacred stream, Cologne with its great cathedral is reflected. In it there is a face painted on golden leather, which has shone into the confusion of my life. … the eyes, lips and cheeks are just like those of my beloved.7. I hold no grudge, though my heart breaks, love ever lost to me … I saw the night in your heart, I saw the serpent that devours it: I saw, my love, how empty you are.8. If the little flowers only knew how deeply my heart is wounded, they would weep with me to heal my suffering, but …  only one knows, she that has torn my heart asunder.9. There is a noise of flutes and fiddles and trumpets, for they are dancing the wedding-dance of my best-beloved. There is a thunder and booming of kettle-drums and shawms. In between, you can hear the good cupids sobbing and moaning.10. When I hear that song which my love once sang, my breast bursts with wild affliction. Dark longing drives me to the forest hills, where my woe pours out in tears.11. A youth loved a maiden who chose another: the other loved another girl, and married her. The maiden married, from spite, the first and best man she met. ... It's the old story, always new: the one whom she turns aside, she breaks his heart in two.12. On a sunny summer morning I went out into the garden: the flowers were talking and whispering, but I was silent. They looked at me with pity, and said, 'Don't be cruel to our sister, you sad, death-pale man.'13. I wept in my dream, for I dreamt you were in your grave: I woke, and tears ran down my cheeks. …14. I see you every night in dreams, and see you greet me friendly, and crying out loudly I throw myself at your sweet feet. You look at me sorrowfully and shake your fair head ... You say a gentle word to me and give me a sprig of cypress: I awake, and there is no sprig, and I have forgotten what the word was.15. The old fairy tales tell of a magic land where flowers shine in the golden evening light, where trees speak and sing like a choir, and songs of love are sung such as you have never heard, till wondrous sweet longing infatuates you! … Ah! I often see that land of joys in dreams: then comes the morning sun, and it vanishes like smoke.16. The old wicked songs, and the angry, bitter dreams, let us now bury them …  the coffin must be bigger than the Heidelburg Tun. ... And bring me twelve giants, who must be mightier than the St. Christopher in the cathedral at Cologne. They must carry the coffin and throw it in the sea. … Why must the coffin must be so big and heavy? I will also put my love and my suffering into it.

Isaac Albeniz (1860-1909) composed Aragón (Fantasia) in 1886 as one of a series of piano solo pieces depicting the musical styles of the Spanish provinces. It is based on a popular traditional dance called the Jota. This version of Aragón was adapted for oboe and piano by David Walter.  Alberto Guidobaldi (1967- ) is a professor at the Conservatorio de Musica de Puerto Rico in San Juan. He composed this Sonatina for Oboe and Piano in 2004. It has three movements: Allegro ModeratoTempo RubatoVivoVivo has a catchy Latin rhythm that alternates between 6/8 and 3/4 like the one Leonard Bernstein used in the song “America” for West Side Story:GIRLSI like to be in Ame-ri-caOkay by me in Ame-ri-caEverything free in Ame-ri-caBERNARDOFor a small fee in Ame-ri-ca . . .

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756-1791) wrote his Violin Sonata in F major, KV 376, in 1781 as a showpiece for his student, the pianist and composer Josepha Barbara von Auernhammer (1758-1820). She performed its premiere in Vienna with Mozart playing the violin part, and later supervised its publication. In Dolci's adaptation, the oboe rolls through the double and triple-stopped chords of the violin part, transposes a few notes up or down an octave to fit the oboe's range, and trades brief passages with the piano. Other departures from Mozart's score can only be attributed to human error.The three movements are marked:      I.         Allegro     II.         Andante    III.         Rondo: Allegretto grazioso

Partia #2 of Die Kleine Kammermusik by Georg Philipp Telemann (1681-1767). It consists of a slow dance with six variations. The movements are  Siciliana Allegro Allegro Allegro Affetuoso PrestoTempo di menuetto

In this episode Dolci plays:Pavane for a Dead Princess by Maurice Ravelarranged for English horn and piano by Carolyn HoveRavel was born and educated in Paris. His Pavane for a Dead Princess began as a piano piece in 1900, and has become standard concert repertoire in myriad instrumentations. Ravel never intended it as funereal, but rather as a stately court dance honoring a long-ago Spanish princess. He once commented to the unlucky conductor of an orchestral performance that its title was “Pavane for a dead princess,” not “Dead pavane for a princess.”Aria (Cantilena) from Bachianas Brasilieras No. 5 by Heitor Villa-Lobosarranged for voice and piano by Burle Marx, adapted for oboe and piano Villa-Lobos, a Brazilian, composed Bachianas Brasilieras No. 5 in 1938 for voice and six cellos. It has been arranged for countless instrumental and vocal combinations. The score directs the opening section to be sung on the syllable “ahh” and the closing section to be hummed with the singer's lips closed. In the middle section the singer chants a poem by Ruth Valadares Correa, describing the moon as a beautiful maiden rising from the sea, her beauty modestly veiled by translucent pink clouds.

 Bill Douglas, Eight Easy Lyrical Pieces, Volume I.Begin Sweet WorldLullabySweet RainReturn to Inishmore  (an island in Galway Bay, Ireland)Infant DreamsThe Hills of Glencar (in northwestern Ireland)Morning SongKaruna (the Buddhist concept of compassion)Bill Douglas' biography, published scores and recordings are at https://billdouglas.cc. His new solo piano album ‘Quiet Moon' can be purchased at http://smarturl.it/QuietMoon.

Our second episode is Francis Poulenc's Sonata for Oboe and Piano. ÉlégieScherzoDéplorationPoulenc wrote this piece just before his death in 1963. He dedicated it to the memory of his dear friend Sergei Prokofieff. 

Live music performed by Dolci, the oboe-piano duo of Viva Knight and Ted Rust at home in Los Angeles, California. This episode features "Granada (Serenade)" by Isaac Albeniz, "Reverie" by Claude Debussy and "Piece en forme de Habanera" by Maurice Ravel.