Quite honestly, I love the open hole instruments. I just haven't got around to buying one..... yet

As with a Gillet system, open hole models differ between make. Both principals in the BBC SO play Kreul open holded oboes and swear by them. Others will tell you the tuning is awful and they should be avoided.

Howarth did think about re-strating the manufacture of open holded oboes, but eventually decided against it. Puchner still make open holed oboes, as do Ward and Winterborn.

The Gillet system is the preferred system at this moment in time and I will admit, they are easier to control on the tuning front. The G on an open holed oboe can be extremely wild! I would suggest finding an instrument with a closed F# as this will tame the G rather more.

The CYO people phoned because they were looking for a missing book, and they gave the results as well.......





I GOT IN!!!

Congratulations!!! Wow the delights of ensemble Oboe playing

Congratulations

Fantastic Well done Liz

Sara

Is your son doing his grade 8 this session Sara?

Er, yes, the deed is done

Sara

What did he play and when are the results?

He played Handel Sonata in C minor 1st and 2nd mv, Poulenc Sonata 1st mv and Bach Sinfonia. The results could be next week sometime. Apparently the scales went badly, he said he was so nervous his fingers were shaking all over the place and he needed lots of restarts but on the plus side the Bach was "sick". So he either really nailed it, or the examiner went nauseous It's such a worry (for me) when you know how much hard work has gone in and now you can't do any more about it. These results are vital for his uni/conservatoire aspirations

Sara

Is "sick" new slang to mean really good?
I'll keep my fingers crossed for him. Does he want to study oboe next year?

Hope it's a good result! Poulenc sonata and Bach are very nice pieces. I don't know the Handel.

Grade 8 after a bit less than 2 years is very good anyway





I don't know weather to do AB or trinity when I do my grade 8...

Both good repertoire, but I know the Handel concerto from trinity and part of Marcello concerto from ab (the 2nd movt isn't that good yet and I havn't practiced it for a long time)...

And I can learn the saint saens which is for both if I needed to, and I kind of know the bach no.5



But the mozart, haydn, poulenc, hindermith and others are good

Does anyone know why the Vivaldi oboe sonata in C minor (RV 53) only has two flats in the key signature? (Or is it just my edition).

The marcello in D minor has no key signature, and the C minor version of it has two flats (snap) 1 flat less than it should be...

I havn't a clue why it's like that. Maybe it's easy for the chord structure? the Marcello does make B a Bb quite a lot, but uses normal B a lot as well.

Is it a baroque convention then? Maybe I should post it on the theory forum or something.

Edit: I've just looked at my Marcello D minor and it does have one flat in the key signature (Breitkopf edition).

I've got a postgrad degree in music and have been teaching it for 10+ years, and I have no idea. It seems very bizarre to me.

Have you played/got a copy of the Vivaldi? It is very definitely in C minor if you look at the accidentals and the harmony, it's just lacking the Ab in the key signature. I think I could understand better if there was no key signature but to have 2 out of 3 flats marked seems to defy logic.

I might ask my teacher tomorrow if I have time. It's my penultimate lesson before the long summer break so I really want to play as much as possible.

Could well be.

I initially thought it could be a transcription of a violin sonata or concerto:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Il_cimento_de...'inventione

But no.

I did a google search and came up with a very frustrating answer:



http://www.jstor.org/pss/3127291

Subscription to the Oxford journal anyone?


Steve

PS This is like one of those Agatha Christie books. ' The mystery of the missing A flat!'

Yeah yeah, understood. (I think I've got a Handel sonata somewhere that does something similar).

I knew it was originally for oboe because I have a recording of it and in the booklet it says: "The Oboe sonata RV 53, Vivaldi's only 'solo' sonata for this instrument...."

Although I am intrigued as to why, if it was a transcription of a violin sonata, that could explain why it is missing an Ab in the key signature. (There are A flats all over the place as accidentals, and, as I said there is no doubt that it is in C minor if you take into account the accidentals so this could be used as a really nasty theory question for naming the key).

Your wish is my command...

But actually it doesn't help. It just says it's 'one of the most remarkable of its genre' [doesn't say why, exactly], thematic similarities to an opera overture, written for a bloke called Richter.

Does anyone have an edition that has a critical commentary / editor's introduction at the front? (She says, having not looked for her own copy yet...)

Well, I asked my oboe teacher this morning and he said no one had ever asked him that before and he had never really thought about it before either. (Despite apparently having played it as one of his audition pieces to get into the Conservatoire to study the oboe). His only thought was that that there were a lot of F# in it so maybe it had initially been part of a longer work in G minor.

I also got the piano part back (which he had borrowed). This does have an introduction which says that the use of accidentals was different in Vivaldi's time - they only changed the note and the note immediately afterwards but would change the next note even if it was across a bar line - and that this edition has decided to have a modern use of accidentals (ie change the whole bar) but the editor has decided to maintain the "doric notation." (Not that this enlightens me as I thought doric started on the 2nd note of the scale). It also has a facsimile of Vivaldi's manuscript at the back with only 2 flats.

So doric notation anyone?

It's quite confusing... I wonder how many otheres their are...



My Oboe teacher sais that I somehow need 1hr lessons soon to progress properly, so I might be lucky

Oh well, maybe it was due to some obscure tax laws similar to the window taxes in Britain. The more flats or sharps in the key signature, the more you had to pay!

Where's Monty Python when you need them?


Steve

Now, I think I'll go and post the question on the theory forum and see if I get any answers.

Grade 7 done!!!





Sammartini 3&4 movts -
Wasn't bad. The 4th movt was good enough


Schumann 3rd -
Not bad, but not good at all. I forgot to come in at one point and nealy forgot at the same point in the second time The middle C to bottom C wasn't good, and It only came out once out of the many times you had to do it. all the rest were kind of squeaks.

Bach 70-
Good, but I couldn't count the rests though...



Scales -
so-so. I started a Db major scale when asked for C# minor...
and the chromatic on F wasn't in tune

Sight reading -
It was in F minor. I stayed in key most of the time, but I sometimes played a D when it wasDb.

The rythm was easy, but I don't know if I got it right ir not. I didn;t notice the dinamic markings at all untill after I played





Aural

BAD!!!! I couldn't say what the style was, so I talked about the articulation and dinamics. The examiner said 'how loudly did it end?' and I was concentrating on the piece as a whole, and not the ending, so I said 'piano', and the examiner was 'yeeees', which probably means it was wrong. There was a syncopation rythm in it, but I forgot and couldn't say it, and the modulation was wrong...

I 'probably' got the cadence right though.







Overall - I havn't got a clue if it was good enough for a good mark...

The examiner wasn't too scary, and the chruce had realy good acoustics.

Well the good news is my son got distinction in his grade 8 I'm so pleased for him, it's brilliant

Also Liz, it sounds to me like you've done pretty well, enough for a merit from what you've said. I think Grade 7 is a very tricky one to get a distinction in. Most people use it like a mock to prepare for grade 8 and mocks are always marked hard. So be glad it's over and enjoy the Summer

Sara

That's brilliant!

Congratulations to your son.

Fantastic!! A big well done to him.

Thanks folks!

Sara

New books!!!
ordered - Krommer concerto Op.52, poulenc sonata and Britten six metamorphoses after ovid.

It's probably going to take abut 2/3 weeks till it arrives.

Couldn't find the JS Bach sonata (the one in the trinity syllubus) in musicroom.com so ordered it from juneemmerson, and it arrived today! VERY quick. It was only ordered yesterday

I won't have to get any more Oboe books for ages now hopefully





How's everyone else's playing?

Emsoboe is playing in a festival next Sunday. The Nielson Fantasy Piece no1 Romance and the Albinoni from G6 (don't know which one it is). She's working on G6 scales at the moment and everything is coming together really well.

Just waiting now to see what her Teacher suggests she learn next.

good luck!

Albinoni the one in the syllabus is lovely. The C major Op7. no.12 was it?
I love playing whole albinoni concertos. Ther're not impossibly hard fingering wise, but some of the articulation is difficult to decide... Ah well, beroque music is like that.


Today was the last lesson 'till september


still no results...

We managed to borrow a CD from her Teacher with a recording of the Albinoni on. Last night she asked about suggested dynamics and was advised to listen to the CD for ideas. The oboe on the CD is buried somewhere amungst 10,000 violins (a slight exaggeration perhaps). What it'll be like, when she plays it on the day is anyones guess.

Emsoboe much prefers the Nielson and she plays it better so the Albinoni might get ditched if her and the accompanist can't sort it out.

Grade 7 - 91/100!!!

Huge congratulations Liz, you must be really pleased with yourself.
Are you taking a break now, or moving straight on to G8?

thanks!

grade 8 pieces now...



J.S.Bach Gminor sonata and the Saint-Saens sonata

and when it comes, the Poulenc sonata and Krommer concerto.



Choose two best pieces out of those for summer really. I'll practice as many as I can to a goodish standard to get the repertoire though.





Don't know weather to do ab or trinity



I love the Bach for list A at the moment, which is only for trinity.

learning grade 8 ab scales (just in case).

A great result. Well done

Congratulations an excellent result!!

Well Done Liz thats an excellent mark, you must be very pleased...

I just bought some new music from a giant berlin music shop..

Mozart Oboe Quartet (i love this piece. now i need a string trio to play with...)
Beethoven Sonata (its an arrangement of the 2Ob+CA trio)
Some dreadfully hard Bozza studies
Invocation, by Horst Ebenhoh, who i've never heard of but it looks like a cool piece.

so plenty to do over the summer!
Then i'm playing first oboe in the Rite of Spring next term.. how awesome is that?!

Sounds nice



the breakdown for grade 7 was
Sammartini - 21/22 (7,7,7)
Schumann no.3 - 22/22 (7,7,8)
Bach no.70 - 20/22 (6,7,7)
Scales - 13/14
Sight reading- 7/10
Aural- 8/10 I got half the questions wrong!?

total - 91

The pieces breakdown is very different from my grade 5 ones...


Apparently I'm aiming for grade 8 in the Easter session

Thats awesome well done!!

Liz that's a really tremendous mark Well done! I don't understand the other marks you put after the score...

Sara

thanks

it's the marks breakdown for the pieces.


the first one is for ' national accuracy & fluency' and it's out of 7.
the second one is for technical facility and is out of 7
the third one is for interpritation and communication and is out of 8.



add them up and it's out of 22.

Thanks, I get it now. Your Schumann must have been fiendishly hot

Sara

Liz, your Schumann mark was fab, thanks for explaining all the figures after the total mark. I think I'm going to be playing No 1 in a concert in the autumn, but I think I'll learn No 3 as well. I'm envious of the Sammartini...I was learning that, and just as I was beginning to get it under my fingers and enjoy it, I lost the music, and refuse to buy another copy just in case the original turns up (funds are limited and I have other music waiting to be played). Now I'm still trying to get to grips with a Haydn concerto. I wondered why I was battling, and discovered it is a G8 piece, and I'm not really a G8 standard player, but it's a lovely dramatic piece of music.

Hi, back from activities week in London.



Thanks. I made quite obvious mistakes in it though
Losing music must be so fustrating... I hope it'll turn up sometime soon.
I don't know the Haydn concerto that well, but I've got lots and lots to practice already...

Still working on the Krommer and Poulenc and Bach (not the study, the A piece in trinity)

Oooh, I'm so jealous!

Hope you're practising your high notes!

I just thought I might try and resurrect this thread!!!

I would like some advice...the question of exams is looming. I haven't taken an exam for a number of years, and now I find myself at G7 level or maybe a bit beyond that. Bearing in mind I have to get my G5 theory...would it be worth waiting a while longer and trying to go for G8 or being more cautious and starting out with G7??? I'm not worried about the pieces as much as the scales and the aural test.

Apart from that the Haydn oboe concerto is fine, I've moved on to the slow movt, which is beautiful, and the rondo, which I find to be quite funny....

I hope everyone is having a happy summer dodging the showers!!