Romancing the Oboe
Oboist David Nuttall and guitarist Timothy Kain turn romantic miniatures into a warm chamber programme. Familiar favourites sit beside Brazilian sambas and Nielsen’s incidental music.
Frédéric Chopin composer
Claude Debussy composer
Richard Charlton composer
Erik Satie composer
Jacques Ibert composer
Napoléon Coste composer
Carl Nielsen composer
Heitor Villa-Lobos composer
Friedrich Burgmüller composer
David Nuttall and Timothy Kain play short romantic pieces arranged for oboe and guitar. The programme moves from Chopin, Debussy, Satie and Ibert through Coste and Burgmüller to five numbers from Nielsen’s incidental music The Mother, with Brazilian works by Celso Machado and Villa-Lobos.
The disc was recorded in November 1997 at Llewellyn Hall, Canberra School of Music.
Reviews
David Nuttall and Timothy Kain…have walked confidently into the light music domain…This is a very mixed bag of pieces, some more successful than others for the present combination. Best of all, I feel, are the sambas of Brazilian Celso Machado, originally composed for flute and guitar. I haven't heard those versions, but I can't imagine a flute being half as effective as Nuttall's sultry oboe… I look forward to a whole disc of South American originals from Nuttall and Kain, but in the meantime there are enough of them on the present disc to make it the hit it deserves to be.
Artists
David Nuttall
David Nuttall’s oboe is bold and forthright in Mozart’s wind quartets, intimate across Schumann’s romances and canonic etudes, and deliciously sultry in Brazilian and romantic miniatures with guitar.
Timothy Kain
Timothy Kain is an Australian classical guitarist, soloist and chamber musician whose work centres on new Australian repertoire, teaching, and the guitar-family quartet Guitar Trek.
Tracks
- Pé de Moleque Celso Machado 2:26
- Quebra Queixo Celso Machado 3:59
- Prelude, Op. 28 No. 4 Frédéric Chopin 2:09
- Golliwog's Cakewalk Claude Debussy 2:54
- Serenade Richard Charlton 3:02
- Gymnopédie No. 1 Erik Satie 3:01
- Entr'acte Jacques Ibert 3:23
- Consolazione, Romance, Op. 25 Napoléon Coste 2:15
- The Fog Is Lifting Carl Nielsen 2:53
- Mignon Carl Nielsen :50
- Elf Dance Carl Nielsen 1:34
- Algodão Doce Celso Machado 1:37
- Paçoca Celso Machado 3:12
- Distribuição de Flores Heitor Villa-Lobos 3:29
- Folk Melody Carl Nielsen 2:17
- Humoresque Carl Nielsen 1:49
- Nocturne No. 1 Friedrich Burgmüller 3:08
- Les Regrets, Cantilène, Op. 36 Napoléon Coste 2:41
- Piazza Vittorio Celso Machado 3:21
- Sambossa Celso Machado 1:36
- Bachianas Brasileiras No. 5 Heitor Villa-Lobos 5:04
Performers
- David Nuttall · oboe
- Timothy Kain · guitar
Composers
Frédéric Chopin
Frédéric Chopin (1810–1849) was a Polish composer and virtuoso pianist of the early Romantic period. He wrote almost exclusively for the piano and remains one of its defining poetic voices.
Claude Debussy
Claude Debussy (1862–1918) was a French composer whose harmony, colour and flexible sense of key reshaped European music at the turn of the twentieth century. Piano, orchestral and chamber works from his maturity remain central to the repertoire.
Erik Satie
Erik Satie's piano music moves in slow, spare circles. The Gymnopédies and Gnossiennes rest on simple modal melodies and unresolved chords, cool, unhurried and strangely weightless.
Heitor Villa-Lobos
Heitor Villa-Lobos (1887–1959) was a Brazilian composer whose vast output fused native folk and popular music with European classical craft. His Bachianas Brasileiras remain among the most recognised works of twentieth-century South American art music.
Richard Charlton
Richard Charlton writes for the guitar with a player's knowledge of its colour and resonance. His music ranges from melodic waltzes and serenades to landscape suites that paint Australian skies, bushfire haze and bay-side dreams.
Napoléon Coste
Napoléon Coste's guitar music carries French Romantic drama and song: programmatic fantasies that send soldiers to war and bring them home in triumph, beside short romances and cantilènes of quiet, flowing melody.
Jacques Ibert
Ibert's scores favour clarity, colour and a light touch. His chamber miniatures, including the well-loved Entr'acte, bring French wit and classical poise to flute, harp, guitar and solo cello.
Carl Nielsen
Carl Nielsen’s music moves with rhythmic drive and clear, singing lines that keep shifting key underfoot. From the youthful Violin Sonata to spare organ preludes and the folk-tinged miniatures of The Mother, the writing feels vital, open-air and unmistakably his.
Contributors
Liner Notes
Chris Nuttall
Guitar maker
Greg Smallman
Cover Photography
Ken Martin
Ken Martin is a photographer whose cover and artist photographs appear on Tall Poppies recordings from the 1990s.
Photography
Kim Dodsworth
Oboe maker
Rigoutat
Where to listen
Romancing the Oboe is available for streaming through Apple Music. It can also be purchased through the iTunes Music Store.
Romancing the Oboe is available as a CD. It can be purchased online through Buywell Music or the Australian Music Centre which both offer online ordering.
Product details
- Catalogue number
- TP119
- Total playing time
- 56 minutes 40 seconds
- Producer
- Belinda Webster
- Recording Engineer
- Belinda Webster
- Venue
- Llewellyn Hall
- Credit
- Chris Nuttall
Greg Smallman
Ken Martin
Kim Dodsworth
Rigoutat - Release date
- 19 May 1998
- Label
- Tall Poppies
- Musical work
copyright - © 1998 Tall Poppies Records
- Sound recording
copyright - ℗ 1998 Tall Poppies Records
- Categories
- Great Classics, Modern Masterpieces
- Genre
- Romantic & Impressionist
- Barcode
- EAN 9399001111923
Related recordings
Six Fish
Guitar Trek began in 1987 and broke new ground for the guitar with a special “family” of instruments: standard guitars by Greg Smallman, treble guitars by Eugene Philp and Greg Smallman, and baritone and bass guitars by Graham Caldersmith.
Mirrors of Fire
Every now and then a CD comes along that makes you glad to be alive: the music is so infectious and the performances brilliant. This is one such disc, featuring Timothy Kain, Australia’s virtuoso guitarist.
A Garden of Earthly Delights
Three Australian concertos in exuberant performances by the Australian Youth Orchestra, conductor Diego Masson, and soloists David Nuttall, Ian Munro and David Pereira.
Schumann: Complete Works for Oboe
Two Canberra colleagues whose tastes aligned present the most complete set of Schumann’s works for the oboe—and of pieces not written for it. Sitsky, better known as a composer, contributes his transcription of the neglected pedal-piano Etudes.
Onomatopoeia
Long-awaited performances of Nigel Westlake’s most acclaimed chamber works, with outstanding Australian players. One of Tall Poppies’ most successful releases.
Mozart: The Wind Quartets
The Australia Ensemble, with Geoffrey Collins (flute) and David Nuttall (oboe), play Mozart’s four flute quartets and the Oboe Quartet. The recording was the Recommended Performance in the 1995 Gramophone Good CD Guide.