Three excellent performances of this work - two contemporary and one historical, the first broadcast performance - are showcased here. I am not going to express a preference for any particular version - suffice it to say that all three are essential for an in-depth appreciation of this great work.

The most intensely lyrical of all woodwind instruments, the oboe has a long and distinguished history. Undisputed king of the woodwind during the baroque era, the instrument features heavily throughout Bach’s works as well as appearing in myriad sonatas and concertos by other composers of the period. The arrival of the clarinet in the late eighteenth century rather nudged the instrument out of the limelight. Mozart turned to the clarinet for his last and greatest wind pieces, rather setting the tone for subsequent composers ( Brahms, for example, who wrote some of his finest chamber music for clarinet but nothing whatsoever for oboe), although the 20th-century saw many notable additions to the repertoire, including concertos by Richard Strauss and Vaughan Williams, along with Poulenc’s melancholy late sonata.BBC broadcasts as a soloist, and in 1937 gave the first performance (with the Boyd Neel Strings) of the concerto her father had Adaptive_ocr true Addeddate 2023-05-10 10:01:16 Betterpdf true Bookreader-defaults mode/1up Boxid IA1679213 Catalog_time 474 Condition Good Condition-visual Very Good Country US Derive_submittime 2023-05-10 10:00:21 Disccount 1 External-identifier

Britten composed this work for solo oboe in 1951, completing it in time for its premiere during the Aldeburgh Festival of that year. As had become traditional in the early Festivals, there was a concert on Thorpeness Meare, with soloists and audiences alike in rowing boats, and the Six Metamorphoses were first heard on the water: the intrepid soloist was Janet Boughton. As Sarah Bardwell describes in this week’s film, this concert was recently recreated with Nicholas Daniel as the boat-bound soloist.Phaeton, "who rode upon the chariot of the sun for one day and was hurled into the river Padus by a thunderbolt." The level of enthusiasm didn’t abate after Cumberbatch was gone, with the Françaix and Mozart pieces beautifully played and warmly received. But the best was left for the encore, for which Cumberbatch returned to the stage and read Eichendorff’s poem Mondnacht, before the quartet gave a gorgeous rendition of an arrangement of Schumann’s famous setting. The French oboist Maurice Bourgue has died at the age of 83. ‘His tone is delicate and sweet, with the subtlest of gradations’ is how Gramophone’s Lionel Salter described Bourgue’s recording of the Poulenc Oboe Sonata (Decca), a work he frequently performed and recorded. it is a major reference document that needs to be regarded as an important contribution to Britten studies."

Leicester International Festival, and teaches in the UK and in Germany, where is he Professor of Oboe at the Musikhochschule, Bourgue's passion for oboe performance extended to his teaching, he was appointed P rofessor of O boe at the Paris Conservatory, a position he held for 13 years, and subsequently a similar position at the Geneva Conservatory he held until 2011.

Each of the six sections is based on a character from Roman mythology who is briefly described: [1] Over his career, Bourgue was no stranger to the recording studio. With over 28 albums to his name, he championed oboe works from the early Baroque including works by Albinoni, Bach and Vivaldi to the 20 th century: Poulenc 's Oboe Sonata, Britten 's Metamorphoses and Dutilleux 's Oboe Sonata among others. Storms, Laughter and Madness: Verdian ‘Numbers’ and Generic Allusions in Benjamin Britten's Peter Grimes This recording sets out to provide a complete overview of Benjamin Britten’s masterpiece for solo oboe, Six Metamorphoses after Ovid, Op 49. Not only is this work unique in the oboe repertoire but it is also one of the most distinctive examples of solo single-line instrumental writing from any age. It is hoped that performers, listeners, students and teachers will find it a useful resource for the understanding or preparation of such a wonderful work. Six Metamorphoses after Ovid (Op. 49) is a piece of program music for solo oboe written by English composer Benjamin Britten in 1951.