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Brian Norcross, conductor of Allegro: The Chamber Orchestra of Lancaster, tells of an international music conference his mother, an oboist, once attended.
"They played a Handel piece with something like sixty-four oboes and about that many bassoons. Now that's probably too many," he said.
Allegro is tuning up for the second of three summer offerings to be presented Saturday at Franklin & Marshall College. "Too Many Oboes" will highlight several works in which the oboe, or a large number of them, promises to steal the spotlight.
"The title 'Too Many Oboes' could be either a question or an exclamation," Norcross said. "It all came about because we had selected the Telemann for three oboes as the attention-getter — and since we had these oboe superstars from South Central Pennsylvania playing, we got the idea to look for other pieces with oboes."
Norcross said that scoring for two oboes is fairly standard, "but it's pretty wild to see four oboists, at least until Mahler. For the 18th century, this is way out there."
The oboe, classified as a double reed instrument because of the two strips of cane that vibrate against each other in the mouthpiece, takes its name from the French term hautbois, meaning "loud woodwind." The oboe assumed its present form in the 19th century, but traces its origins to the earlier shawm of medieval times. The slightly larger English horn (or cor anglais), with its pear-shaped bell is essentially an alto oboe, pitched a fifth lower than the standard concert oboe.
The concert opens with Georg Philipp Telemann's Concerto in B flat major, TWV 44:43, scored for three oboes, strings and continuo. Telemann, a German Baroque composer, is widely considered to have been the most prolific composer of all time. Scholars believe he wrote more than 3,000 pieces, ranging from chamber music to sacred oratorios to operas.
The three oboists in the Telemann are Jeff O'Donnell, Jill Marchione and Emery DeWitt. O'Donnell, who is principal oboist with the Lancaster Symphony Orchestra, also plays with the Delaware Symphony and teaches locally. Marchione began her professional career in Spain, but later relocated to the Camp Hill area and teaches at Dickinson College. DeWitt is director of music at Lancaster Church of the Brethren."(DeWitt's) is an inspirational story," Norcross said, "because he didn't start playing the oboe until he was in his early 40s. He decided he wanted to play an instrument. I said he was at the age that many oboists retire, but if he wanted to do this, to do it right and call Jeff O'Donnell. Emery is now a really accomplished oboist."
Next, the orchestra turns to Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart's Divertimento No. 1 in E flat major, K. 113, originally composed in Italy in the early 1770s. Allegro will play the composer's later version, which added a woodwind band of two oboes, two English horns and two bassoons. Playing English horn will be DeWitt and Norcross's daughter, Megan, a former student of O'Donnell's.
"A divertimento is a fairly light piece," Norcross said. "It's meant to be a diversion and it functions perfectly as just that. You have nice melodies; beautiful tunes. But in this arrangement you have the startling aspect of the instrumentation."
Concluding the first half, the ensemble returns to the Baroque for George Frideric Handel's Concerto a due cori No. 1 in B flat, HWV 332. It is written in seven movements. The due cori, or "two choirs" of the title refer to groupings of woodwinds, including four oboes that converse back and forth throughout. This piece has the flavor of Handel's "Music for the Royal Fireworks," composed around the same time.
Concerti such as these were intended as additional music at performances of Handel's oratorios and — in the manner of a theater overture — the Concerto No. 1 borrows melodies from no less than six of Handel's oratorios. The most recognizable tune (an arrangement of "And the Glory of the Lord" from Handel's own Messiah) occurs in the second movement.
The second half of the concert is devoted to Mozart's Symphony No. 38 in D major, K. 504, the "Prague Symphony," completed in 1786. It is in three movements, and because of that is known to Germans and Austrians as "the symphony without a minuet."
Mozart was particularly well loved in the Bohemian capital, and débuted this work in the midst of an extremely popular run of his opera The Marriage of Figaro. For the symphony's finale (and to the delight of Prague concertgoers) Mozart borrowed a prominent melody from the opera's second act — the frenzied aria "Aprite, presto aprite," which Susanna sings to lure a hiding Cherubino from a closet and shepherd him out a window to safety.
Allegro: The Chamber Orchestra of Lancaster, "Too Many Oboes," Sat., 2 and 7:30 p.m., Barshinger Center for Musical Arts, Franklin & Marshall College, 560-7317.
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