Concerto for oboe and small orchestra in D major
The Concerto for Oboe and Small Orchestra in D major AV 144 ( TrV 292) by Richard Strauss was written in 1945 and premiered on February 26, 1946 in Zurich. It is dedicated to the Tonhalle Orchestra Zurich and its director Volkmar Andreae . The soloist of the premiere was the solo oboist of the Tonhalle Orchestra, Marcel Saillet.
Sentence sequence (played through without interruptions):
- Allegro moderato
- Andante
- Vivace
- Allegro
Emergence
The concerto was written immediately after the Metamorphoses for 23 solo strings , and two years later the composer described both works as one of his “workshop works”, “so that the right wrist, freed from the baton, does not fall asleep prematurely”.
Between the "Metamorphoses" composed in a depressed mood and the already much more optimistic-sounding oboe concerto lay the end of the Second World War for Strauss and the first contact with the Americans, who had recently been referred to in his diary as "criminal soldiers": he was somewhat surprised to find that that they treated him with deference, asked for autographs - and assigned his villa in Garmisch the off limits category . From now on the occupation troops were "extremely amiable and benevolent".
One of these soldiers was the 24-year-old oboist John de Lancie from Chicago, who asked Strauss directly whether he had ever thought of a concert for the oboe. His answer was a resounding "No!" Shortly afterwards, Strauss began composing his oboe concerto.
While at work, Strauss moved to Switzerland because of his poor health and the poor supply situation in post-war Germany, a plan that he had been pursuing since the summer of 1944. At the Hotel Verenahof in Baden in Aargau , his temporary stay, he finished the concert in October 1945.
premiere
On January 25, 1946, the “Metamorphoses” premiered in Zurich - in the absence of the composer (although he had conducted the rehearsal the day before), perhaps because of the personal meaning this piece had for him, but perhaps also because of the resistance that continued to be met with him in Switzerland. On February 26, 1946, the oboe concerto was premiered, also in Zurich, and this time the composer wanted to be there. The organizers assigned him a seat in the back rows of the hall, conscious of his unresolved political past; a listener from the front row swapped places with him, symbolically bringing him back onto the stage.
structure
The Concerto for Oboe and Small Orchestra in D major is written in classical form. The first three movements merge without a break, before the last movement the musical course is briefly stopped by a fermata . Apart from a few interludes of the tutti, the solo part runs through the entire piece. It is accompanied, sometimes accompanied by the solo viola or the solo violoncello, by a delicately orchestrated small orchestra that always lets the solo part emerge vividly. The contrapuntal themes, which are as simple as they are artistically, allow the characteristics of the oboe's tonal registers to come into their own.
Individual evidence
- ^ A b Daniel J. Wakin, How Strauss Came to Write His Oboe Concerto , December 3, 2009, The New York Times
- ^ Letter of April 1, 1947 to the Argentine music writer Johannes Franze
- ^ Letter of May 10, 1945
- ↑ Jürgen May: "Last Works." In: Charles Youmans (Ed.): The Cambridge Companion to Richard Strauss. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge et al. 2010, ISBN 978-0-521-89930-7 , p. 186.