GIBBS: Concerto for Oboe and Orch.; SCOTT: Concerto for Oboe and Strings; WRIGHT: Concerto for Oboe and Strings; PEHKONEN: Amor Vincit Omnia, for Oboe d’amore and Strings – Jonathan Small, oboe – Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orch./Martin Yates – Dutton

by | Dec 13, 2010 | Classical CD Reviews | 0 comments

GIBBS: Concerto for Oboe and Orchestra; SCOTT: Concerto for Oboe and String Orchestra; WRIGHT: Concerto for Oboe and String Orchestra; PEHKONEN: Amor Vincit Omnia, for Oboe d’amore and Strings – Jonathan Small, oboe – Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra/Martin Yates – Dutton Epoch CDLX 7249 – 66:35, [Distr. by Harmonia mundi] ****:

This is a disc of four English oboe concertos that span the twentieth and twenty-first century. C. Armstrong Gibbs (1889-1960), as a teacher in a British preparatory school, wrote music for children’s plays, notably Crossings. The conductor was a young Sir Adrian Boult, and he was so impressed that he paid for Gibb’s tuition fees at the Royal College of Music. Gibbs’ Concerto for Oboe and Orchestra (1923) was performed a couple of times and then forgotten. It’s an almost 16-minute work for full orchestra – unusual at the time – that allows the oboe lots of solo time without being drowned out by the brass. The beautiful slow movement – using a string quartet – is good reason to make acquaintance with this rarely heard work. Kudos to oboist Jonathan Small for rescuing it from musical oblivion.

Cyril Scott (1879-1970) studied in Germany with Percy Grainger and other British composers and became a wellpublicized virtuosic pianist who championed the avant-garde. His best known works are his Piano Concertos, but he wrote many other concertos, including the Concerto for Oboe and String Orchestra (1946) on this disc. It’s a pensive pastoral work in the first two movements, relying more on diaphanous textures rather than melody, punctuated by the oboe’s piercing sounds. A lively Rondo breaks the impressionist spell. Here, although the oboe is spotlighted, the string sound is captured in all its sensual detail.

We enter the 21st century with Christopher Wright’s Concerto for Oboe and String Orchestra, written in 2009. As the composer notes, it explores the “diversity (including elements of jazz) of this rather remarkable instrument. It’s primarily tonal, with strong dissonant and chromatic presence.” The diversity of moods in this work is typical of contemporary compositions: restlessly angular, pleasingly melodic, pensive and contemplative with a jazzy finale. But it never loses its long-lined melodic presence. It’s the work I’ll return to most often on this CD. Elis Pehkonen’s Amor Vincit Omnia for Oboe d’amore and Double String Orchestra completes the disc. At 8+ minutes it lives up to its title – in this case, love for melody conquers all. This is a pleasing disc for oboe fanciers.

— Robert Moon