Oboe

From outdoor shawm to court instrument

Loud double-reed pipes called shawms led outdoor civic and court bands across Europe for centuries. Sometime around the middle of the seventeenth century, makers in France turned one of them into something quieter: a narrower, three-jointed instrument with a few keys, which players called the hautbois, or high wood. Historians generally agree on that transformation; the attribution of it to particular families, often the Hotteterre and Philidor circles in Paris, is less firmly documented.

The new instrument travelled quickly. The Bate Collection in Oxford holds what it believes is Britain’s oldest oboe, dated to about 1690, maker unknown and origin either France or England. A slightly later example by Thomas Stanesby in London’s Horniman Museum, made between about 1700 and 1733, carries only three keys. Through the eighteenth century the oboe gained a place in orchestras beside the Violin and Flute, and a generation of composers wrote concertos for it.

Blackwood, cane and a great many keys

A modern oboe is a cone of wood about 58 to 60 centimetres long, assembled from an upper joint, a lower joint and a flared bell. African blackwood is the usual material, though some student instruments use resin composites. A surviving Paris-made example in the Horniman Museum measures 58.7 centimetres and extends down to low B♭, which remains the bottom note today. Silver-plated keywork, laid over the body on pillars and rods, closes holes too far apart for fingers alone.

The reed is the part of the oboe that players make or adjust themselves. Two thin blades of cane, usually from the giant reed Arundo donax, are tied onto a small metal tube called a staple, which is wrapped in cork so it fits into the top of the instrument. The blades are scraped to a precise profile, and small changes in thickness alter the response, the tuning and the colour of the sound.

Why the tone carries

Air sent between the two blades makes them beat against each other hundreds of times a second, and that buzz drives the air inside the conical tube. The opening between the blades is tiny, so the player uses surprisingly little air but needs firm control; many oboists find they must release stale breath before they can inhale. The conical bore makes the instrument overblow at the octave, so one fingering pattern serves across two registers.

The resulting tone is rich in upper harmonics, which gives it a focused, slightly nasal edge that stays audible against a full orchestra without much force. Orchestral players have long relied on that clarity. The Philharmonia Orchestra describes the tone as sweet and haunting, and traces the pastoral associations to the instrument’s ancestry among shepherds’ folk reed pipes, a link to be taken as a picture rather than precise history.

A pitch reference for the whole orchestra

The oboe is a non-transposing instrument, so written and sounding pitches agree. Its commonly cited compass runs from B♭3 to about A6, with extra notes above that available to advanced players. The lowest octave is full and somewhat reedy, the middle register is where the tone is most characteristic, and the top notes become thinner and more intense, requiring exact reed and embouchure control.

Before a concert, many orchestras tune to an A played by the oboe, after which the other sections match it. The usual explanations are practical: the oboe’s pitch is relatively stable once it is warm, and its tone is easy to hear across a hall. Concert pitch for A4 varies between ensembles, commonly between about 440 and 445 hertz, and modern orchestras settle on their own local standard.

Breath, lips and the long apprenticeship of the reed

Oboists shape the embouchure, the way the mouth meets the instrument, by drawing the lips gently inward over the teeth and letting them cushion the reed rather than clamp it. Both hands work the keys in the usual woodwind arrangement, with the left hand above the right, and the thumbs help control the octave mechanism. Articulation is usually a light touch of the tongue tip against the reed tip.

Much of a player’s development happens at the reed desk. Professional oboists commonly spend hours each week preparing blades with knives and mandrels, and a reed that suits one room, one piece and one climate may not suit the next. Long phrases depend on economical breathing, and some players use circular breathing, inhaling through the nose while cheek muscles keep air flowing into the reed.

Systems, sizes and cousins

No single mechanism governs every oboe. The Triébert family of Paris produced a series of numbered keywork systems through the nineteenth century, and the Horniman Museum records that the thumbplate system, giving the left thumb main control of the action, was introduced by Triébert in 1849; it remains popular with British players. A separate Conservatoire system, developed in Paris in the later nineteenth century, became the standard across France and in much of the world. Fingerings differ between the two for some notes. Viennese oboes, which retain a distinct bore and reed design, are still used in Vienna.

Larger relatives extend the family. The cor anglais, or English horn, sounds a fifth below the written pitch; the oboe d’amore is pitched a minor third lower; and the rarer bass oboe and heckelphone reach deeper still. The Edinburgh collection holds a heckelphone of 1907, introduced by the Heckel firm around 1905 and pitched an octave below the oboe, along with a Paris-made bass oboe of 1901 by Lorée.

Where the oboe sings

In a symphony orchestra, two or three oboists sit in the woodwind row, often with a cor anglais player who doubles. Composers have given the oboe exposed lyrical lines in slow movements and pastoral scenes, but also quick, dry articulation in dance movements. Wind bands use it for melody in the middle of the ensemble, while the wind quintet, a chamber group of flute, oboe, Clarinet, horn and Bassoon, gives it a chamber voice.

The solo repertoire reaches from Baroque concertos by composers such as Albinoni and Marcello to Mozart’s concerto of the late 1770s and Richard Strauss’s concerto of 1945. Oboists also play period instruments with only a few keys for early repertoire, so the eighteenth-century sound of a concerto can be heard as the composer would have known it.

Keeping wood, cork and cane in balance

Blackwood swells and contracts with changes in humidity and temperature, and it can crack if cold or dry air meets a warm, damp bore. Players usually warm the instrument gradually, swab the bore after playing, and keep reeds out of sudden heat or draughts. Cork joints need occasional attention so that the sections fit firmly but not too tightly.

Reeds are consumables. They are moistened briefly before use, rinsed or dried carefully afterward, and stored in a protective case that allows air circulation. Keywork is regulated by a technician since small adjustments affect whether a pad seals. Approaches to oiling the wood vary among players and makers, so the practice is best described as a matter of preference rather than a single rule.

Small facts and open questions

• The word oboe comes from the French hautbois, meaning high wood. The Bate Collection notes that the instrument was called hautbois before about 1770.
• The Edinburgh collection’s Lorée bass oboe of 1901 began with a Conservatoire mechanism, later replaced by a thumbplate system, and once belonged to Leonard Brain, described as Britain’s leading bass oboist.
• The Stanesby oboe in the Horniman collection has just three keys, including a swallow-tail C key and a doubled D♯ key.
• Wilhelm Heckel’s heckelphone of the early 1900s sounds an octave below the oboe and was written for by Richard Strauss and Paul Hindemith.
• The Philharmonia Orchestra lists four oboe types, Baroque, Classical, Viennese and modern, each with its own tonal character.

Terms used in this entry

bore

The hollow channel inside a wind instrument; in the oboe it widens gradually from top to bell, forming a cone.

Conservatoire system

A later Paris oboe mechanism with added keys and rings, now the standard in France and many other countries.

cor anglais

A larger oboe-family instrument, also called the English horn, sounding a perfect fifth lower than written.

double reed

Two thin blades of cane tied together so that they vibrate against one another when air passes between them.

embouchure

The way a player shapes the lips, jaw and facial muscles against the reed or mouthpiece.

non-transposing

Describes an instrument whose written notes sound at the same pitch as they appear on the page.

shawm

A loud, conical-bore double-reed instrument of the Middle Ages and Renaissance, ancestor of the oboe.

staple

The small metal tube, wrapped in cork, onto which the oboe’s reed blades are tied.

thumbplate system

An oboe key mechanism, introduced by Triébert in 1849, in which the left thumb has main control of the key action.

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References

1. The Bate Collection, University of Oxford. Oboes | The Bate Collection. bate.ox.ac.uk/oboes
2. Horniman Museum and Gardens. 422.112 - Oboe by F. Lorée (14.5.47/22). horniman.ac.uk/object/14.5.47/22
3. Horniman Museum and Gardens. 422.112 - Oboe by Thomas Stanesby (14.5.47/277). horniman.ac.uk/object/14.5.47/277
4. University of Edinburgh, St Cecilia’s Hall. Bass oboe, nominal pitch: C | F. Lorée | 1901. collections.ed.ac.uk/stcecilias/record/96161
5. University of Edinburgh, St Cecilia’s Hall. Heckelphone, nominal pitch: C | Heckel | 1907. collections.ed.ac.uk/stcecilias/record/96149
6. Duke University Musical Instrument Collection. Trièbert System 4 Oboe. sites.duke.edu/dumic/instruments/woodwinds/west-europe/triebert-system-4-oboe
7. Philharmonia Orchestra. Oboe Overview. philharmonia.co.uk/resources/instruments/oboe

Sources were consulted for facts and context; the text is original. See Sources and Methodology.