The oboe d'amore (Italian for "love oboe"; pronounced [ˈɔːboe daˈmoːre]), also called hautbois d'amour in French ([obwɑ damuʁ]), is a double reed woodwind instrument in the oboe family. It is slightly larger than the oboe and has a softer, calmer, and more peaceful sound. It is sometimes called the alto of the oboe family, sitting between the oboe (soprano) and the cor anglais, or English horn (tenor, though sometimes also considered an alto). The oboe d'amore is a transposing instrument tuned to A, sounding a minor third lower than written. Its bell, called Liebesfuß, is pear-shaped, and the instrument uses a crook or bocal, which is similar to but shorter than the one used by the cor anglais.
Invention and use
The oboe d'amore was created in the eighteenth century and was first used by Christoph Graupner in his cantata Wie wunderbar ist Gottes Güt (1717). Johann Sebastian Bach wrote many musical pieces, including a concerto, several cantatas, and the Et in Spiritum sanctum movement of his Mass in B minor, for the instrument. Georg Philipp Telemann also often used the oboe d'amore in his compositions.
Its popularity decreased in the late eighteenth century, and the oboe d'amore was not used for about 100 years. Composers such as Richard Strauss (Symphonia Domestica, where the instrument represents a child), Claude Debussy (Gigues, where the oboe d'amore has a long solo passage), Maurice Ravel, Frederick Delius, and others began using it again in the early twentieth century. The instrument can be heard in Toru Takemitsu's Vers, l'arc-en-ciel, Palma (1984), but its most famous modern use is in Ravel's Boléro (1928), where the oboe d'amore follows the E-flat clarinet to restart the main theme. Gustav Mahler used the instrument once in Um Mitternacht (1901), one of his five Rückert-Lieder. In his orchestration of Mussorgsky's Pictures at an Exhibition, Vladimir Ashkenazy uses the oboe d'amore to emphasize the sad solo in the Il vecchio castello movement.
In the twentieth century, the oboe d'amore was used often by Philip Glass in his opera Akhnaten (1983) to match the high voice of the main character. David Stock's concerto Oborama includes the oboe d'amore as a soloist, along with cor anglais, musette, bass oboe, and oboe (with the oboe player using an oboe d'amore in the third movement).
Modern instruments
Modern makers of oboes d'amore include Howarth of London (instruments made from African blackwood or cocobolo wood), F. Lorée in Paris (instruments made from African blackwood or violetwood), and others such as French makers Rigoutat, Fossati, and Marigaux, Italian maker Bulgheroni (who make instruments from grenadilla, violetwood, cocobolo, rosewood, palisander, and cocus wood), Japanese maker Joseph, and German makers Püchner, Mönnig, and Ludwig Franck. New oboes d'amore cost about £8,250 in 2016, which is similar to the price of a new cor anglais. This cost, combined with the limited demand for the instrument, leads many oboists to rent rather than buy their own oboe d'amore when needed. For the same reason, second-hand oboes d'amore sometimes appear for sale with very little wear, showing they were well cared for (and yet with only a small decrease in price compared to new instruments).