Oboe Concerto in A Minor

Vaughan Williams began composing his Oboe Concerto in 1942 and finished it a year later. It was written for the English oboist Léon Goossens, whose playing combined elegant poise with great virtuosity and a remarkable, keening expressiveness of phrase and line. The scheduled first performance, at the 1944 Proms in London’s Royal Albert Hall, was cancelled due to the V-1 flying-bomb attacks on wartime London; Goossens instead gave the premiere later that year in Liverpool. The “Rondo pastorale” first movement is a vintage example of Vaughan Williams’ English-landscape manner at its loveliest. Then comes “Minuet”, with the dance form’s upmarket elegance offset in the central section by its rustic “Musette” counterpart (where the oboe’s low sustained notes imitate a bagpipe’s drone). The finale begins with quicksilver “Presto” interplay between the oboe and strings; out of this emerges the movement’s waltz-like main tune, followed by a sequence of central episodes. Eventually the waltz tune returns, and the oboe leads the concerto toward its serene conclusion.