Monday, March 07, 2005

Principal Oboist, anyone?

From The New York Times:

February 12, 2005
Suddenly, 'Oboist Wanted' Signs Are Everywhere
By DANIEL J. WAKIN

Where have all the oboes gone?

More precisely, where have the principal oboists in the nation's leading symphony orchestras gone?

The job - a critical one in any orchestra - is open, or about to be, at the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, the Cleveland Orchestra, the Los Angeles Philharmonic, the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra and the San Diego Symphony.

In the latest departure, Joseph Robinson said this week that he will retire as principal oboist of the New York Philharmonic, one of the most visible orchestra jobs in the country, after 28 years.

"This is a conservatory oboist's dream, to see so many openings at the same time, with all the trickle-down effects of that," Mr. Robinson said.

But it can be an orchestra executive's nightmare. As John Mack, the dean of American oboists, put it, "People are running around like headless chickens saying, 'Where are we going to find people?' "

The lack of a permanent, full-time principal may not be readily obvious to the concertgoer, accustomed to hearing the orchestra tune to the oboist's pitch, a plaintive A. But the instrument has some of the most prominent solo material in symphonic music.

Observers of the oboe world - which would mean just about no one but oboists - say the sudden raft of openings appears on the surface to be a confluence of health problems and retirements.

But there is also a generational change under way, as the recent musical descendants of the father of American oboe playing, Marcel Tabuteau, who died in 1966, leave the scene.

Tabuteau played in the Philadelphia Orchestra from 1915 to 1954. Through his teaching, he is universally credited with having created the American sound and style of playing the oboe, a notoriously difficult woodwind instrument, with its incessant hunger for carefully whittled double reeds, their two faces lashed together, and its tricky fingering mechanism. As Tabuteau's legacy recedes, the latest generation of players lacks distinction, some suggest, slowing the process of filling all the openings.

Nevertheless, the prospects have up-and-coming oboe stars salivating.

"It's like a gift from heaven," said John Snow, an acting co-principal oboist of the Minnesota Orchestra and a highly regarded player considered ripe for a bigger job. "It's not going to happen again like this." Mr. Snow said he might shoot for the Cleveland and New York openings.

The chair, obviously, will never go empty. Associate oboists, substitutes and acting principals fill in, and they are generally superlative musicians. A number of the orchestras involved have finalists for the job or are in the middle of auditions. But some auditions have been dragging on for years. The Cleveland Orchestra, for example, has been without a tenured principal oboist since Mr. Mack retired in 2001.

Over the long term, musicians say, the void can affect an orchestra's sound, internal culture and morale.

Changing any principal position can be subtly disruptive in an organism whose artistic expression depends on years of playing together. Personalities and musical profiles must mesh. The oboist is particularly important, and is often seen as the pre-eminent woodwind voice (though clarinetists and flutists may dispute that judgment).

"They are the principal fiddle of the wind section," said Paavo Jarvi, the music director of the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra. "There is a musical and moral authority that comes with the position." The principal oboist is often seen as "the second concertmaster of the orchestra," he said.

The prominence of the oboe, one of the earliest winds to join the orchestra, stems from tradition, the role of the principal player and the vividness and intensity of the instrument's sound.

Mr. Mack recalled that when he joined the Cleveland Orchestra in 1965, its conductor, the autocratic George Szell, leaned over his music stand one day and said, "Mr. Mack, you are the leader of the woodwinds."

Delaying the appointment of principal oboists also delays the learning curve.

"Being a solo oboe player, you are basically playing a concerto every night," Mr. Jarvi said. "A new person will have an incredibly difficult 10 years in front of them, because everything is new, everything is exposed. You have to have nerves of steel."

Given the pressure, it is remarkable that many principal oboists stay around for several decades.

Mr. Robinson of the New York Philharmonic said that at 64, he "didn't want to get into a position where people were whispering I should leave already." He said he did not have the virtuosic reflexes he once had, adding, "Some things were easier 20 years ago."

Elsewhere, the principal oboist in Los Angeles, David Weiss, retired in September 2003. Richard Johnson, the Cincinnati Symphony's principal for 30 years, has been out most of this season with health problems, and he plans to take over the vacant second oboist job and its relatively lower level of pressure next season, Mr. Jarvi said.

In Chicago, Alex Klein, perhaps the most brilliant player of the younger generation, developed focal dystonia in his left hand, a condition that involves a loss of motor control, and had to leave in December 2003. William Bennett, in San Francisco, contracted cancer of the tonsils, but he is expected to return next season, said Rebecca Edelson, the orchestra's personnel manager. San Diego is asking its acting principal oboist to take part in new auditions, the music director, Jahja Ling, said.

In orchestras where there are long delays in filling the job, officials say it is a matter of finding exactly the right fit - not just personality, not just technical proficiency, but a match of the orchestra's sound and tradition. Since Mr. Mack retired from the Cleveland Orchestra, one potential successor departed after a two-year probationary periods, and another is about to.

There is worry that despite legions of technically proficient players - scores of them apply for openings - the pool of oboists with the right stuff to be principals has shrunk. Professionals agree that the sheer number of solid players has never been higher, although conservatories tend to turn out relatively few oboists, given the instrument's difficulty. The International Double Reed Society said its membership includes about 1,600 to 1,800 American oboists, both amateur and professional, and the College Music Society Directory lists more than 350 oboe teachers and faculty members at universities and conservatories.

"In any generation there are only a certain number of people who have all the requisites for this type of position," Mr. Robinson said. "They must be imaginative, persuasive, artistic personalities."

But some oboists see a darker motive, suggesting that orchestras try to save money by keeping permanent chairs open and saving the benefits and the huge sums that can come with a principal position. Principal oboists, precisely because of their centrality in the mix, are among the highest-paid members of the nation's major orchestras, where they can earn around $200,000, roughly twice the orchestras' base pay.

"I think it's kind of morally wrong to ask people to train for the Olympics again and again and then not fill it," said Elaine Douvas, one of two principal oboists in the Metropolitan Opera Orchestra and a veteran teacher. "There are definitely enough intelligent, well-trained, technically accomplished players out there who can fill the openings."
fjozn at 10:22 PM