Bass oboe

The bass oboe or baritone oboe is a double reed instrument in the woodwind family. It is about twice the size of a regular (soprano) oboe and has a deeper sound one octave lower than the oboe. Its part is notated in the treble clef, sounding one octave lower than written. Its lowest note is B, although an extension may be inserted between the lower joint and bell of the instrument in order to produce a low B-flat.

Early bass oboes were either like bassoons, in that they had a boot joint and bocal (such as Triebert's instruments, which still had a bulb bell) and some holes drilled obliquely, or they were enlarged English horns. The concept of the bass oboe as an enlarged English horn survived, and an hautbois baryton redesigned by François Lorée was introduced in 1889.

During Frederick Delius's time in Paris at the end of the 19th Century, this instrument came to his notice, and upon Delius's return to England other English composers also became interested in the idea of a bass member of the oboe family. Some confusion, however, arose between the "true" bass oboe and the heckelphone, a double reed instrument of similar register introduced by the firm of Wilhelm Heckel in 1904 which is distinguished from standard members of the oboe family by its wider bore. As a result, it is not always clear which of the two instruments is intended when the composer specifies the "bass oboe".

The bass oboe has not as yet come into its own as a solo instrument; only a single solo concerto has been written for it to date (The East Coast, by English composer Gavin Bryars, composed in 1994). The work was written for the Canadian performer Lawrence Cherney, who uses a bass oboe manufactured by F. Lorée. Robert Moran's Survivor From Darmstadt, for nine amplified bass oboes, was commissioned by oboist Nora Post and premiered in 1984.

In Holst's "The Planets" the instrument is used to great effect, providing a unique tone of which no other instrument is capable. Notable solo lines include some faint parps during "Mars", during the chromatic runs on the oboes in "Mercury", numerous exposed lines in the quiter moments of "Saturn" (probably the best example of a solo in the whole work,) and in the 5th and 6th bars of the bassoons soli after the opening notes of "Uranus". The bass oboe is also prominently featured in the First Interlude of Sir Michael Tippett's Triple Concerto.

Jennifer Paull maintains a website [1] which publishes music employing all members of the oboe family including bass oboe. Simon Zaleski, a student at the Peabody Conservatory, has written what may be the first sonata for bass oboe and piano and is actively trying to find opportunities to score for the instrument.

The instrument, manufactured by Loree, Marigaux, Rigoutat, and others, actually costs less than a bassoon of comparable quality to purchase (about US$9,000) and has a deep, full tone not unlike that of its higher-pitched cousin the English horn.

Contrabass oboes have been constructed but have never been successful as they have the same register as the practical and well-established bassoon. Current research, in particular that by hautboy specialist Bruce Haynes, suggests that such instruments may have been developed in France as part of an original attempt to maintain the complete family of double reed instruments when the oboe was created from the shawm. There was an instrument referred to as the basse de cromorne or basse de hautbois which was used by Lully, Charpentier, and other French Baroque composers that apparently was an oboe-type instrument in the bassoon range.

External links

Listening

• Bass oboe audio files (Christopher Raphael)