Vaughan Williams - Oboe Concerto [Nicklin/Marriner-The Academy Of Saint Martin In The Fields]

I like the idea behind this disc, a collection of the lesser known Orchestral works of Vaughan Williams, he is justly famed for his nine Symphonies, his major statements, especially the 2nd, 5th, and 6th, and certainly his two concertante pieces The Lark Ascending and the Tallis Fantasia are also well known, but this collection brings together some of the other pieces, and it's was good for me to get to know them better today.

Neville Marriner is now 87, still conducting the ASMF, he's English, and it's fitting having a very English Conductor, with a very English Composer on the disc, and a very English Painter on the front cover, Constable's The Hay Wain is an inspired choice, a tremendous painting, it hangs in the National Gallery in London, i've been in there and seen it, it's really huge, six feet long, and over four feet tall, the wording and lettering are nicely placed, and there's a sort of 'feel' for the music and the painting, as if they go together, the Oboe Concerto was recorded in 1979.

On this listen i really enjoyed the Concerto Grosso and the Oboe Concerto, i have a new appreciation for both, they each have some wonderful ideas, and they're certainly not second rate Vaughan Williams as i at first thought, i was especially touched by the Oboe Concerto, with Celia Nicklin as the soloist, Vaughan Williams wasn't exactly renowned for his Concertos [though i have a soft spot for his Piano Concerto], they always seem to be short and pithy, but his Oboe Concerto repays repeated and intensive listening.

Here's Catherine Kim playing the third movement on YouTube.

Vivaldi - Oboe Concertos Volume 1 [Schilli/Jonas-Failoni Chamber Orchestra Budapest] 

Naxos have issued the complete Vivaldi Oboe Concertos on two discs, this includes all the Double Oboe Concertos [with Diethelm Jonas on the second Oboe here], and i feel that it's these Double Oboe Concertos that are the best thing here, each has a certain character, and once you get familiar with certain tunes in certain movements, you just can't get them out of your head, Vivaldi created roughly 500 Concertos, just the sheer number, all created in his Baroque style, can sound very 'samey', but you can start to pick out favourite bits, unlike say the Bassoon [which Vivaldi composed a fair number of Concertos for], which i don't think really works for Vivaldi, the Oboe on the other hand works just great.

Stefan Schilli i believe is German, this disc was recorded in 1992, as is usual with Naxos discs, the front covers have a tendency to leave a lot to be desired, they aren't very inspired in my mind.

Well i so much enjoyed three separate movements on this disc, the opening movement of RV 534, the slow middle movement of RV 452, and the opening movement of the Double Concerto RV 536, and it's this Concerto i would like to talk about, the oboes really just double up, they don't play any different from each other, or play separately from each other, the opening is just pure genius invention, the two oboes play piercingly high treble, i guess it's in their nature, it's quite a high instrument, and the strings fill in the oboe silences with downward string notes [0:00-0:31], after a string tutti, the oboes come back in, and play a nice variation of the opening [0:53-1:10], with cleverly added embellishments, and this is the way that the music continues, orchestral tuttis punctuated by oboe solos, each new oboe solo seems to become slightly more varied and virtuosic than the last, the third solo is the best [1:27-1:49], adding some nice higher 'flutterings', and the last solo [2:06-2:26], returns to the more flatter unembellished opening, once you get this in your head and heart, it becomes really endearing.

Here's Christopher Palameta & John Abberger playing the Double Oboe Concerto RV 536 on YouTube.