The oboe is a double-reed instrument with a wooden body and a narrow conical bore. Unlike most wind instruments, the oboe didn't evolve, it was invented. During the 17th century, the oboe was originally one of the names of the shawm, the violently powerful instrument of outdoor music-making. However, it was too loud to be played indoors without drowning the other instruments. The story goes that Louis XIV asked the composer Jean-Baptiste Lully and the instrument maker Jean Hotteterre to make an "indoor shawm" in the mid-17th century. Hotteterre narrowed the bore of the shawm, reduced the size of the finger holes and considerably narrowed the reed, resulting in the their oboe, called hautbois (French for "high, or loud wood"). It was immediately successful, its tone was rich and expressive and had the ability to play a wide range of dynamics from very soft to loud. By the end of the century, it was the principal wind instrument of the orchestra and military band and was the first instrument to compete with the violin.

The oboe has a body of three sections and is played using a double-reed. In fact, the chief factor in playing the oboe is the making of the reed and its control by the lips and the mouth. Most serious players make their own reeds, although ready-made reeds can be purchased. The raw material for the device is the plant arundo donax, which resembles bamboo in appearance. It grows in warm temperate or subtropical regions, but only crops of the southern French regions of Var and Vaucluse are satisfactory for reed making. The oboe is non-transposing and has a natural scale of C. Although still higher notes are obtainable, the generally accepted range is from B flat below middle C to an octave above G on top of the treble clef.

Oboe player Steven Taylor

The baroque period was the hey-day for the oboe, and in many ways was the wind equivalent of the violin. It took a firm place in the orchestra, being used by composers far more than the flute or clarinet, and it is often said that the wind section is built around the oboe. In any case, the oboe's first responsibility in an orchestral piece is to sound the A to which every other instrument tunes up - a task not as easy as it sounds, because the player has to keep a pure and perfectly constant pitch for about half a minute.

The modern oboe was developed in the 1860s by Guillaume Triebert. The old baroque oboe had a single key, and most notes were made by the player merely by covering the holes with fingers; the only problem was that the instrument could only play successfully in a few keys. The improved version, which is now widely used in the United States and France, had finger holes covered by perforated plates. It has a more complex keywork which enables any scale to be played convincingly, encouraging the composer to write for a wider range of keys.

Composers were quick to exploit the instrument and particularly its vocal qualities. They include Handel (arrival of the Queen of Sheba), Mozart (Oboe Concerto), Beethoven (Oboe Concerto) and Schumann (Three Romances for the oboe). Modern composers also wrote challenging music for the oboe. Ravel's Daphnis and Chloe is notorious for its difficult oboe part and Britten's Six Metapmorphoses After Ovid is well known.

Top oboe players include Heinz Holliger of Switzerland and Maurice Bourgue of France. Holliger is very Germanic, totally dedicated, a true professional who practises constantly, while Bourgue is more laid back and uninhibited. These two are great friends and have recorded all the two-oboe repertoire together. A good English player is Leon Goossens who has taught legions of players currently playing in British orchestras today.

A relative of the oboe is the Cor Anglais or English Horn (It is neither a horn nor is it English). It is a large oboe pitched a fifth below the ordinary oboe, with a bulbous bell and, at the top end, a bent metal crook on which a double reed is placed. Haydn was one of the earliest composers to use it in a symphony (Philosopher Symphony No.22).

---