The Yale Philharmonia, under the direction of Maestro Peter Oundjian, perform Ralph Vaughan Williams' Concerto in A minor for oboe and strings with featured soloist and YSM alum Soo Min Ha '21MM '22MMA.
Program notes from the concert:
The oboe has long been used in music to invoke the pastoral, the melancholic, and to the distant past. With its resemblance to shepherd pipes and the Ancient Greek aulos, the instrument recalls a natural, bygone setting. Hector Berlioz, in his influential treatise on instrumentation, noted the instrument’s “rustic character, full of tenderness, …even of shyness.” Vaughan Williams captures all of the oboe’s distinctive qualities in this concerto. It begins-in a Rondo Pastorale, appropriately enough- with a modal theme in an unhurried tempo, with the oboist leading the way. Waves of intensity rise and fall, organically following the instrument’s range as well as volume. The oboe’s timbre naturally cuts through its sonic environment especially in its highest range, and Vaughan Williams takes advantage of this as he builds to climactic moments. The composer carefully chooses when to reduce the number of accompanying strings, keeping the texture light and transparent during most solo passages. However, when both soloist and full strings play together, the effect is powerful, like a wave cresting.
The form of the concerto is unconventional in that its slower passages reside in the outer movements, and it lacks a true slow movement. The central Menuet & Musette capitalizes on the interplay between sprightly staccatos and flowing passage of vocalise. The Scherzo is the most rhythmically and stylistically dynamic of the three movements, and it is also by far the most substantive. Its origins in the sketches of the composer’s Fifth Symphony may have something to
do with this. The caffeinated, bubbly nature of the opening melody gradually exhausts its energy, leading to a tender, reflective close.
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