An oboist friend, the great John Dee, who I have had the pleasure of playing with in the Champaign Urbana Symphony Orchestra for the last twenty years, asked me if the above Schubert arrangement would work for oboe. Unfortunately (or maybe fortunately for flutists) the flute part is too "flutey" in nature for the oboe, not to mention too high. But John's question set me on a quest.
I started making my way through Franz Schubert's songs, and found that this Opus 118 set from 1815 works perfectly as a set for pieces for oboe and string quartet.
The IMSLP doesn't have a category for the whole opus, only the individual songs, so I am only sharing this set of pieces through this blog and my thematic catalog blog.
If you would like to know the texts of the original songs, you can find them all (untranslated) here.
You can find the music here, and listen to a computer-generated recording here.
When life gets difficult (as it was for Schubert in so many ways), spending time with his music in any way is a wonderful antidote. It won't solve any of the problems that we face in these challenging times, but it gives a window into the sublime beauty that can be present in the human soul.
And we need to allow that beauty to overpower (even when played dolce and pianissimo) the images and actions (images that result from repulsive actions) that we are faced with on a daily basis, so that we can remain sane and can continue to try to do good in the world.
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