Oboe Cds… endless amounts…
Saturday July 07 2007
Ever since I worked for Tower Records while attending NEC… in Boston, I’ve been an oboe CD fanatic. I probably own close to 400 CDs (originals), and probably 50 or 60 of them are oboe solos.
Some of my favorites:
Holliger×Bach Concertos (d minor, F major, and A major concertos)
John Mack×Oboe (Mozart Quartet, Loeffler, Britten, etc.)
John de Lancie×Strauss Concerto, etc.
Omar Zoboli×Mosaico Barocco (Bach little g minor sonata BWV… 102?, Marcello, etc.)
Humbert Lucarelli×Strauss, Wolf Ferrari, Vaughn Williams concertos (and Barber Canzonetta)
Some Lesser known Cds are probably
Marcel Tabuteau×Mozart Quartet
Albrecht Mayer×Romantic Oboe Concertos
John de Lancie×Marcello Oboe Concerto on Build your Baby’s Brain
John Ferrillo×Mozart Quartet on Musical Evenings with the Captain vol. II
But my all-time favorite oboe CD hands down goes to—
Alex Klein× Fantasies and Partitas by Bach and Telemann
This CD is by far, the best oboe CD I have ever heard. Not only does Alex Klein show off his technically and physically mastery of the instrument, he shows tonal colors, note/phrase groupings, and inflections which are so ridiculously controlled that it’s an amazing level of quality any oboist should strive for. If I was stuck on an island with a CD player, unlimited amounts of AA batteries, and one CD, this would definitely be it.
Now, I know there are a LOT… of great oboe CDs, but for my small collection, these are the ones I just keep coming back to time and time again.
You’re probably looking at this list as saying, “Where are all the European players?” and I’ll be honest. Albrecht Mayer’s CD is on here, as are a couple of Holliger’s CDs, but I can’t get over the “whaa whaa” vibrato that European players often bring with them. The vibrato is often so wide, that I feel the tonal center is lost and therefore it’s too distracting to the music.
If you’re American, you might be asking, “Where are all of Mack’s CDs and Douvas’ CDs?” I have them all, but the dark-covered Mack CD is definitely my favorite, and it always bothers me a lot when I hear both Mack and Douvas “chew the notes”. What I mean by this is that when they go to do a legato phrasing, they separate every note, even though it is legato, so it doesn’t sound silky smooth. I spent a lot of time posting about this on the Oboe Bboard here if you want to know what I’m talking about.
If you want to hear clips of some of these oboists, a good website is http://oboistgallery.8m.net/ . I helped gather 10 or so of the clips to demonstrate the wide variety of oboe styles.
cjwrightoboe
Jul 8, 2007
Bautbois,
What an interesting name! I thought it was just my sleepy head, but nope! That’s a “b”!
I do have Alex Klein’s Strauss concerto and although it is very um… “different” I’m not a big fan of his tempo changes. But I am very impressed by his musicality and different interpretation nonetheless. I just think it’s a little bit of what Simon Cowell would call “indulgent”.
Meanwhile, I’ve been thinking about the vivaldi concerto one. I think you can just get it off of Amazon.com.
I’ve also heard Izotov’s CD, and though his sound us deep and technique is quite impressive, I didn’t find depth in his phrasing that I would have expected. To elaborate further, there are some nuances and inflections he does (for a beat or interval or two) with the musical line, but I don’t find that they enhance the long phrase line (spanning 4 bars or 8 bars or so) so it doesn’t feel that the intensity is going or coming from anywhere. I think even on his Pasculli Clip and and other technical clip on his website you can tell this. When you listen to it, do you get a sense of direction and intensity?
Thanks for the note! I definetely will try to get a hold of the Vivaldi.
bautbois
Jul 9, 2007
Hi Cooper,
Well, at least we’re in 100% agreement on the Fantasias album…just goes to show you, music is very subjective! The first time I heard the Klein Strauss, I was just blown away, and I still feel it’s in a league of its own, just superior musicianship…having said that, I love the DeLancie version of it too, partly because I think the orchestra backing him up is great on the recording. Another CD I love is the Nancy Ambrose King Concertos CD…very strong fingerprint on that one too, so I’m sure not all would agree. But my favorite oboe CD of all time, Alan Vogel’s Oboe Obsession! Familiar with it? Izotov - uses a Loree Royal…I think this accounts partially for his stunning technique (I think the Royal is ergonomically a superior instrument) and his round, deep sound…but in my personal view, his musicianship is just stunning…I’ve heard a few others play Pasculli and it sounds like an etude designed to impress, not music - this is OPERA music cribbed for oboe, it’s got to sing! On the Klein Vivaldi, on Amazon they have VERY expensive used versions from resellers..it was published by some music recording club that you need to be a member of, and i think it’s only available from them, if at all…maybe worth joining the club, but when I went on their website i couldn’t confirm that the CD was available if I joined. Did you listen to the Accuradio thing? Too bad you can’t set it to just play the Klein Vivaldi.
Bautbois is French for Bobo (from the BBoard)...actually, the name was taken on Wordpress…maybe it should be Beaubois, because that’s what the oboe really is! Hey, I’m glad you started the blog and good luck with your oboe endeavors…I’m jealous!
cjwrightoboe
Jul 9, 2007
Dang, Royals give better technique eh? Well then my technique should probably be better than it is, because I have a Royal as well. Not sure I completely agree with that, but it’s an interesting theory. Again, I think it depends on the player, since I have extremely long, large fingers and nothing really seems “ergonomically” correct for me.
Yes, I have the Vogel CD, signed by the man himself. I appreciate it and enjoy it, but his tonal concept is something much different than what I strive for. I haven’t heard King’s Concertos CD, but I have heard her Winning Program CD, and she certainly has a different tonal concept than I, but it is nonethless stunning.
I see your trend of liking darker, rounder sounding oboists. While I can appreciate this, I also have to have a solid, defined core to the tonal concept. If I don’t have a clear core to the sound, I find it distracting, too much like a clarinet or flute sound (although a good flautist and clarinetist will have good tonal cores as well) and my ear automatically moves away. I discussed this on the oboe bboard here (about 1/3 of the way down if you look on it via flat view), where I see you also contributed to the thread.
I think that’s what I find more different about Klein’s sound; there’s the dark, but also there’s a much more defined core to his sound.
Yes, I was made aware by the Accuradio thingy by oboeinsight. Certainly a nice service offered there.
Finally, I still don’t believe the instrument controls your tonal sound. It might tweak your overtone series, but whether it be a Royal, a regular Loree, a Greenline, or an XL, I still think you’ll have the same basic tonal concept. For example, Mack played on a Royal, and do you think he had the same sound as Klein? Robinson also played on a Royal and he has a very different sound from Klein or Mack. Finally, Klein’s Royal is a big sucker with that low A (I’ve tried them and almost dropped it on my foot) and THAT Royal has MUCH different qualities than my Royal. Anyways, point being, I think it has more to do with a player’s reed, physical blowing, and embouchure and how much lip covers the reed than just the instrument.
bautbois
Jul 9, 2007
that was one of the all time great Bboard threads! Funny how these personal preferences differ…not to exaggerate - i really like the Ferrillo Mozart and the Lucarelli CD (particularly the Barber)...(btw, for Mozart Quartet, I also really like Harold Gomberg’s and Neil Black’s)...but the de Lancie sound, as much as I can enjoy it, is not my ideal! But even the same oboists sound different on different CD’s - Klein on the Fantasias almost has a trumpet-like purity, not the creaminess of the Strauss, and Vogel’s sound on Bach’s Circle is not as dense as on Obsession, but I love that CD a lot too. Hey, they’re all masters. Joe Robinson, I need to listen to more, I’m a bit biased after reading Mozart in the Jungle, which made him out to be a bit of dirty old man. On the Royal vs. regular Loree thing, I’m going by my recent experience trying out a bunch of oboes before settling on an AK..the first time I picked up a Royal, I immediately felt that the keywork was extremely tightly meshed, better than the regular Loree…I have long fingers too and I thought the greater circumference of the instrument made it more comfortable, though I didn’t like the weight…at the end of the day I picked the AK because I felt it offered more tonal flexibility…funny, I like dark, covered, and round but I wanted an oboe that allows me to get away from that when I want to! Of course, you’re right that reeds and a bunch of other things have a great influence on the sound that finally comes out…and not everyone playing a Royal sounds the same, clearly. But I don’t think De Lancie would have sounded that way on a Royal! Though, I’ll admit that I could be wrong.
cjwrightoboe
Jul 10, 2007
I don’t think he would have wanted to play on an Royal!
I didn’t learn a whole lot from Mr. Mack, mainly because he really didn’t like and didn’t want to take the time to teach me. But what I did learn was that few composers write such things as articulation marks, dynamics, and tempo marks in the music without a specific purpose. While it’s easy for us to spend a lot of time thinking about the long notes and phrases, much of the music making is in between the notes, and the smaller, the more important in relationship to the large phrase
That said, Strauss wrote all of this detailed information in his concerto, and Alex Klein deliberately rejected some of this information. The beginning is certainly not up to tempo, the Vivace is definitely not “lively”, and Klein changes the phrasal structure in several places that I think are critical to the piece.
While this is certain interesting and could be considered a novelty, is it still “Straussesque”? Can you imagine the beginning of Don Juan slowed down to 2/3rds the suggested speed? It would feel like running in a swimming pool!
I think Klein’s 1st and 3rd movements really lost it’s Strauss-like characteristics with his different tempi. And in the end, I am not sure that if Strauss were alive today to hear the recording, that he would approve.
bautbois
Jul 10, 2007
here we are speculating about deceased oboists and their composers and what they would have been OK with today! based on my cursory analysis of the six versions of the strauss i’ve got on my itunes (Klein, Koch, De Lancie, Lucarelli, Black, Lences), i’ll concede that klein is an outlier on tempos…he starts the first movement at about 85, while others are at about 100, which is 85%, but the length of the whole movement is 91% as long, so he’s making up for it later and it’s not as HUGE an interpretative move as it seems (i don’t even think he hangs on to the 85 for that long, but i’ll have to go back and check). on the second and third movements, he stretches things out by about 6%. Ok, this is not microanalyzing each section, so it’s crude (i don’t have time!) Btw, his vivace is faster than De Lancie’s. (Not to mention De Lancie threw out entire measures of notes and had them covered by other instruments - is it OK if the deceased’s family gives it the OK, as apparently happened in that case?) I wonder how much influence Barenboim had on the tempo choices - he must have at least concurred? Also, Lucarelli has the slowest second movement by far! Do you have Lothar Koch’s version? It’s very good.
woeqevm
Jan 24, 2010
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Jul 8, 2007
Cooper,
since you are in awe of Alex Klein, as am I, a couple more for your best of best list: Alex Klein plays Vivaldi (more baroque mastery), and Alex Klein Strauss Concerto (on a Strauss CSO album with various soloists which won a Grammy). To listen to the Vivaldi, which is really hard to get a hold of go to accuradio.com and find the substation for oboe soloists - it usually starts with a Klein vivaldi! I’d also put the izotov album on the list, since Barenboim thought he was good enough to replace Klein at CSO, and the album is pretty awestriking itself (just listen to the Pasculli or the Silvestrini, which are not only technically amazing, but played musically too, not always two things found together!)