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Oboe Family
Oboe
English Horn (Cor Anglais)
Heckelphone and Other Baritone Oboes
Oboe
The oboe was invented in the middle of the seventeenth century, probably by Jean Hotteterre and his colleagues at the French court. It was developed from the shawm (both are doubl-reed instruments with a conical bore and no hole for the left thumb). These first instruments had only two keys, but were built quite precisely, and they quickly became quite popular. Before that time, only violins had been used as indoor solo instruments, because only violins could sound so expressive. With oboes, that quickly changed!
Whereas the shawm was built in one piece, the oboe was built in three pieces connected by tenon and socket joints. The double-reed was attached to a staple that was clear of the body of the instrument enabling more delicate control of the reed between the lips. The size and placement of the tone-holes was changed so that two fully chormatic octaves could be played.
In the nineteenth century, the original two keys were increased to eight, and a speaker (octave) key was added; this was a small hole placed above the fingerholes that simplified overblowing, thereby giving the instrument a wider range.
At the same time as Boehme was working on his key system for flutes, Guillaume and Frédéric Triébert were designing a corresponding key system for oboes. They also narrowed the bore, refining the tone of the instrument, narrowed and thinned the reeds, and changed the position and size of the finger-holes. The resulting system, which has been little changed over the last 150 years, required much harder woods (or other construction materials) than the traditional boxwood; today's wooden oboes are made of grenadillo, ebony, or rosewood.
The dynamic range of the oboe is fairly limited, but the tone is piercing enough to be heard over almost all of the other intruments. That is why, since the eighteenth century, the other instruments of the orchestra tune to the oboe.
Oboe
English Horn (Cor Anglais)
About 1720, some oboe-like instruments with a deeper sound were developed. One was the crescent-shaped oboe de caccia (hunting oboe), and another was the oboe d'amore (love oboe). They were used often by composers like Mozart, but not often since then (although Ravel and Strauss did specify the oboe d'amore occasionally). Near the end of the eighteenth century, the oboe de caccia turned into the English horn. That name itself is a mystery, as it is not English at all--it may be a mistranslation into English of "cor anglé" (angled horn) into "cor anglais" (English horn). The instrument was originally angled, but soon it became straight. The mouthpiece is extended with a slightly bent metal crook, and the bell at the end of the tube is shaped like a pear or egg.
English Horn
Heckelphone and Other Baritone Oboes
Oboe-like instruments pitched lower than the alto English horn are called for in some music. Today, most of these baritone and bass oboes are virtually museum pieces. However, the heckelphone was introduced in 1904 by Wilhelm Heckel and his sons (it had been requested by Richard Wagner as a baritone double-reed instrument that combined the character of the oboe with the powerful but soft tone of the alphorn, but wasn't delivered until 20 years after Wagner's death), and is freely used as a substitute for other bass and baritone oboes because of its deep and powerful tone. The original instrument had a broad bell, large tone holes, and a globular bell. Because of the wide bore of the instrument, the reed resembles that of a bassoon, and is placed on a curved crook. The heckelphone is approximately four feet in length, and is quite heavy; thus, it rests on the floor, supported by a short metal peg attached to the underside of its bulbous bell.I couldn't find a picture of a baritone or bass oboe (which is not a bassoon), but here is a picture of a heckelphone.
Heckelphone
Information Sources
Information on this page was derived from the following sources:
Kruckenberg, Sven (1993): The Symphony Orchestra and its Instruments. Gothenburg, Sweden: AB Nordbok (Crescent Books edition distributed by Random House).
Wade-Matthews, Max (2000): The World Encyclopedia of Musical Instruments. London, UK and New York, NY: Lorenz Books.
Wikipedia, the online free encyclopedia (found at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Main_Page).
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