Oboe

While reed instruments, such as the Arab surnāy and European shawm, have a long history, the oboe we know today dates from the French courts of the mid-17th century, its name deriving from the French hautbois, meaning “high wood.” Vibrations produce sound in its wooden column as a result of blowing air with pressure through a double reed. In 1991, playwright Tony Kushner compared the oboe’s sound to that of a duck, (“if the duck were a songbird”) but Prokofiev had come to the same conclusion 55 years earlier, employing an oboe to represent the duck character in his well-loved symphonic fairy tale Peter and the Wolf. Until the 19th century, the oboe featured in military parades, opera stages, churches, and salons. The 1800s brought changes to the instrument’s mechanism, transforming its sound as well as various technical aspects. You can hear the modern oboe’s lyrical tone within an orchestral setting in Berlioz’s Roméo et Juliette, the slow movement of Brahms’ Violin Concerto, Tchaikovsky’s Swan Lake and the orchestral arrangement of Ravel’s Le Tombeau de Couperin. But to hear it as a true solo instrument, head for Mozart’s Oboe Concerto or Richard Strauss’ divine Concerto in the neo-Classical style.