The Oboe Sings: Translating bel canto Song for the Oboe

Abstract

This performance-based PhD project identifies a gap in available nineteenth-century repertoire for the solo oboe and aims to fill this gap, presenting for the first time new solo repertoire for the instruments of the modern oboe family. The new repertoire is generated through various processes of appropriation from works of the bel canto tradition in the vocal literature. In addition to some of the most powerful vocal repertoire, the study includes important vocal exercises by Giuseppe Concone, works which revolutionised the teaching and learning of singing, and it poses the question, “What can the oboe learn from them?” Other members of the oboe family - the cor anglais, the oboe d’amore, and the bass oboe - are included as, to an even greater degree, these instruments will benefit significantly from an extension to their modest repertoire. A three-pronged approach is used to address this problem: 1. One of the most important works for the learning of bel canto singing, Giuseppe Concone’s 50 Lessons for the Voice (50 leçons de chant pour le médium de la voix avec accompagnement de piano) Op. 9, is adapted for and recorded on the oboe. This will be referred to as Concone’s 50 Lessons. 2. Various forgotten/out-of-print nineteenth-century works for solo oboe were sought out in various archives and repositories, then prepared and recorded. 3. Vocal, or bel canto style works, were appropriated and made into new solo oboe repertoire. The first two of these approaches are used to inform choices made in the preparation of the new scores. This portfolio comprises five CDs of recorded performances, a collection of newly generated scores, and an exegesis. The exegesis discusses in detail the process of repertoire selection and transcription, along with the preparation and recording of the works.