Musicon / Musical education / The oboe
-The oboe
The oboe is naturally associated with music of a pastoral character. It is pre-eminently a melody instrument, and though its voice comes forth shrinkingly, its uniqueness of tone makes it easily heard. It is a most lovable instrument. “Candor, artless grace, soft joy, or the grief of a fragile being suits the oboe’s accents,” says Berlioz.
The peculiarity of its mouth-piece gives its tone a reedy or vibrating quality totally unlike the clarinet’s. Its natural alto is the English horn, which is an oboe of larger growth, with curved tube for convenience of manipulation. The tone of the English horn is fuller, nobler, and is very attractive in melancholy or dreamy music.
No melody displays the true character of the English horn better than the Ranz des Vaches in the overture to Rossini’s “William Tell”–that lovely Alpine song which the flute embroiders with exquisite ornament. One of the noblest utterances of the oboe is the melody of the funeral march in Beethoven’s “Heroic” symphony, in which its tenderness has beautiful play. It is sometimes used effectively in imitative music. In Haydn’s “Seasons,” and also in that grotesque tone poem by Saint-Saens, the “Danse Macabre,” it gives the cock crow. It is the timid oboe that sounds the A for the orchestra to tune by.
From: H. Krehbiel’s, How to Listen to Music; excerpts, edited by Musicon