Description

The Singing Oboe is a compilation of “art songs” for oboe and piano. While a few pieces present technical and rhythmic challenges, they all require a high degree of skill to express their melodies with tasteful, nuanced style. The oboe must “sing.”

The fifteen short pieces share several characteristics: folk melody simplicity, clearly delineated forms, and contrapuntal writing. They are otherwise completely unrelated, independent; there is no central idea that links them. One can perform all or several songs in any order.

Following is a brief description of each song:
1,2 Folk tune influence
3 Jaunty, sprightly dance tune featuring five-measure phrases, abundant counterpoint
4 Exotic tonalities and chords surround simple, plaintive melody
5 ABA opening in G mixolydian. Piano’s playful, faster-moving gestures dance around the oboe’s slower-moving, arching phrases. B♭ major middle section’s bass line suggests Baroque ancestry; its asymmetric phrases overlapping between oboe and piano prove otherwise.
6 Long oboe phrases and clear tonalities
7 Eccentric melody and accompaniment styles, metrical intrigue
8 Ragtime and melancholia juxtaposed
9 Highly rhythmic, reminiscent of Brazilian dance
10 Bright, energetic section cannot escape the brooding G minor accompanied aria
11 ABCA form opening with D minor adagietto, short faster contrapuntal section, three-voice fugue exposition, and restatement of adagietto (Baroque exploration)
12 Highly chromatic treatment of simple melody remains tonal
13 Variations on a quirky G Dorian melody
14 Opens in G♭ pentatonic, progresses through various keys to B major and B mixolydian, closes in G♭ pentatonic to create an oriental atmosphere. All based on one melody
15 Chorale