| Programmatic content and associated instrumental idioms are examined in four works for solo oboe: Benjamin Britten's Six Metamorphoses After Ovid, op. 49, Henri Tomasi's Evocations , Tina Nicholson's Moments from Women, and Helmut Schmidinger's Vier gefiederte Worte des Odysseus. In their programmatic content these compositions refer to literature, ethnologies, and the characterization of diverse personalities. Idiomatic qualities of the oboe, such as articulation, tone color, vibrato, multi-phonics, instrumental range, dynamic variance, and inherent lyricism, are used to convey the programmatic content.; Excerpted text from Ovid's Metamorphoses and the interpretations of Ovid scholars are used to analyze Benjamin Britten's Six Metamorphoses After Ovid, op. 49. Henri Tomasi's representation of four women from Peru, Nigeria, Cambodia, and Scotland in Evocations is examined in relation to musical traditions of each country. The six movements of Tina Nicholson's Moments from Women, representing personalities of various women, are examined with assistance from an interview with the composer. Excerpted text from Homer's The Odyssey and Helmut Schmidinger's compositional ideas support this analysis of Vier gefiederte Worte des Odysseus. An annotated select bibliography of other programmatic works for solo oboe is provided in an appendix. |
