Oboe Concerto in D Major

By the time Richard Strauss wrote his Oboe Concerto in the late summer of 1945, he was 81 and had told the world that his career was over. But old habits die hard, and Strauss kept writing music anyway, laying aside the opulence and grandeur of his operas and tone poems, and re-engaging with his beloved Mozart. The inspiration for the Oboe Concerto came from John de Lancie, a GI in the American occupying forces, who also happened to be an oboist in the Pittsburgh Symphony, and who (having decided to pay his respects to Germany’s greatest living composer) simply arrived at the door of Strauss’ villa in Garmisch-Partenkirchen and introduced himself. Strauss worked swiftly, and the finished concerto is unmistakably in the spirit of Mozart—scored for a chamber-sized orchestra, and rejoicing in the long singing melodies, playful humour and graceful rococo flourishes of an earlier (and happier) musical era. The small orchestra rustles and bustles; over the concerto’s three movements, the oboe moves from sweet, expressive song to poignant reflection, and from perky high spirits to lilting dance. Throughout the Concerto, though, Strauss’ iridescent harmonies and soft, dark orchestral shadows make it clear that this is the work of an old Romantic; a tender and delightful tribute from age to youth, by a great composer in the autumn of his years.