The oboe d’amore is the gentle mezzo-soprano member of the oboe family. It was developed in the 17th century, flourished as a solo instrument in the time of Bach and Handel, and was mostly ignored by the Romantic composers. Debussy and Ravel specified oboe d’amore for successful orchestral pieces, spurring the development of modern instruments with similar acoustics to their Baroque predecessors, but with key mechanisms similar to the modern oboe. “The Swan” was choreographed by Mikhail Fokine in 1905 for Anna Pavlova, who performed it over 4,000 times. Today’s compositions were arranged for modern oboe d’amore and piano by Robert Rainford and published by Forton Music.
1. “Qui Sedes” from Mass in B-minor by J. S. Bach (1685-1750)
2. “Largo” from Serse by George Frideric Handel (1685-1759)
3. “Voi, che sapete” from The Marriage of Figaro by W. A. Mozart (1756-1791)
4. “Traumerei” from Kinderszenen by Robert Schumann (1810-1856)
5. “The Swan” from Carnival of the Animals by Camille Saint-Saëns (1835-1921)
6. “Anitra’s Dance” from Peer Gynt by Edvard Grieg(1843-1907)