Quintet for oboe & string quartet

Abstract

Quintet for Oboe and String Quartet (1973)

Alongside the bassoon, the oboe has been the woodwind instrument for which I have felt a special interest. This interest was aroused partly by chance in 1973, when the Jyväskylä Summer Music Festival commissioned me to write a quintet for oboe and string quartet for Jouko Teikari (solo oboist of the Finnish Radio Symphony Orchestra) and the Finlandia Quartet (Olavi Pälli, Jussi Pesonen, Esa Kamu, Heikki Rautasalo) to be perfomed at a Jyväskylä summer concert on 2nd July 1974. Before starting work I familiarized myself – under the tutelage of Teikari – with the oboe’s capabilities, at the same time becoming aware that this sonically intense, eloquent instrument had previously been used in a surprisingly restricted way in both chamber and orchestral contests. In my quintet I also wished to expand the instrument´s expressive range, especially in the direction of great virtuosity. Nevertheless, the work contains an abundance of grateful-to-play, songful melodies of the sort that are characteristic of the oboe.

The quintet was composed during the autumn of 1973, While working on the piece I made the decisions to continue writing music for the oboe – because, during my examination of Finnish oboe music, I realized how little high-quality chamber music for oboe had been written by Finish composers. My second chamber work to feature the oboe was a quintet for flute, oboe, violin, viola and cello (1977). In 1985 I competed my large-scale sonata for oboe and piano, and in 1986/98 the Seven Inventions and Postlude for oboe and cello. My association with the oboe is not yet over: among my future plans are a piece for solo oboe and an oboe concerto.