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The oboe is a soprano-range, double-reed
woodwind highly important as a solo and orchestral instrument
for 3 centuries. About 0.5 m (2 ft) long, its wooden tube
is distinguished by a conical bore expanding at the end into
a graceful flaring bell. Although the modern oboe's range
extends from the B-flat below middle C to the A nearly three
octaves higher, its finest register sounds between D above
middle C and the D two octaves above, where its distinctively
pungent and penetrating quality pervades in all dynamics.
The immediate ancestor of the oboe was the loud, piercing
treble SHAWM, actually an outdoor instrument. In order to
satisfy the baroque need for refined expression, evidence
indicates that Jean Hotteterre, an innovative instrument maker
and woodwind performer, created the oboe (c.1657), probably
with the assistance in reed making of Michel Philidor. The
instrument, an immediate success in wind ensembles and in
Jean Baptiste Lully's opera orchestra, spread rapidly throughout
the West. Like the human voice, it provided every shade of
expression and quickly advanced from its function of reinforcing
the violin parts to independent orchestral parts and solos.
The new woodwind was built in three sections, and its lowest
note (middle C), controlled by a butterfly key, sounded through
two vent holes drilled in the gradually expanding bell. Duplicate
E-flat keys were placed on either side until about 1750, when
a standard lower right-hand position made the left-hand key
superfluous. The most important change was the abandonment
of the shawm's lip rest. Attached to a staple, a longer, narrower
reed could be held farther forward where, controlled between
the lips, a beautiful refined tone could be produced with
wide dynamic range.
This was the instrument used by Bach so effectively, particularly
for obligatos to vocal solos, and essentially the same instrument
fulfilled the expressive demands of Haydn, Mozart, and Beethoven.
Only the necessity for more chromatic flexibility forced changes
in the sweet-toned baroque instrument. By the time Beethoven
had written his Ninth Symphony (1824), Joseph Sellner had
produced his versatile 13-keyed oboe. Within the century mechanical
improvements--particularly in key structure, spring, and mountings--were
incorporated in the oboe, and the reed was further narrowed,
changing the distinctive baroque quality. Nevertheless, the
present German-style oboe, with its comparatively wider upper
bore and its warm and sensuous tone, has varied little in
other essential features.
In France, however, distinctive changes transpired, particularly
in the shop of Triebert, father and sons designing and building,
between 1810 and 1878, instruments of strikingly individual
tone quality. The Triebert-type oboe, often with some modification,
now predominates in Western music except in Vienna and some
Viennese-influenced areas.
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