My dear papa arrived on Thursday, and on Friday we renewed a tradition from the days when my parents lived here; concerts at Chamber Music Northwest. We had a really lovely time, and it once again made me feel that I must make time in my life for oboe once more. It also reminded me of my wistful dreams of putting together an amateur chamber music group as an outlet and encouragement for my musical urges.

The most fabulous parts of the program (program notes in rtf here) were the Sonata for Flute, Oboe, Violin and Continuo in B-flat Major by Johann Friedrich Fasch, and (big surprise) Concerto for Oboe, Violin, Strings and Continuo in C Minor, BWV 1060 by Johann Sebastian Bach. I was a little disappointed in the suite they chose from Handel’s Water Music - there’s a beautiful, ethereal (wait for the bias…) oboe duet in Water Music that I was hoping to hear. The Vivaldi Bassoon Concerto was fascinating, a very technically demanding piece for an instrument that very seldom gets to show off (Go bassoons! Double-reed solidarity and all that.) and exquisitely performed by Julie Feves, who was celebrating her 30th year of performing at CMNW. However, it wasn’t the most socks-rocking Vivaldi I’ve ever heard - I will only expound further on the two pieces that inspired me to write “BUY RECORDING” on the programme.

Concerto for Oboe, Violin, Strings and Continuo in C Minor, BWV 1060 by Johann Sebastian Bach: I love Bach. I hear people saying he’s sterile and unemotional all the time, and I can only think that they don’t notice emotional content more subtle than Alanis Morrissette. This particular piece was performed by Allan Vogel, a Puckishly twinkling wonderful oboist who’s been playing there much longer than I’ve been going. Oh, and a violin and some other people. Don’t get me wrong, violins are okay, and this violinist was superb. But Vogel is amazing. My dad and I kept giving each other these “wow” looks. The Adagio was heart-breakingly beautiful, and astoundingly well-played. The kind of sweetness I am always reaching for in lyric oboe music on almost every single note. And it’s very hard to play quietly on the oboe, so you have that difficulty on top of everything else. It was just amazing.

Sonata for Flute, Oboe, Violin and Continuo in B-flat Major by Johann Friedrich Fasch: I especially loved the first fast movement in this sonata de chiesa (slow-fast-slow-fast). The soloists tossed the lead melody betwixt them like the golden ball you see princesses tossing in fairy tale books - a seamless, shimmering, graceful flight. More than any other piece I can remember at present, listening to it conveys how it feels to play chamber music - the intimate trust, the ensemble where each individual is exposed, the carefully crafted beauty of it. The tossing of a ball is one metaphor I would use to encapsulate the feeling—perhaps more apt would be a great huge soap bubble which every musician is blowing into with a wand. It is beautiful, many-hued, and delicate, and depends on each and every one of you getting it right. Lovely.

So, anyone in the Portland area a good violinist, pianist, flautist, clarinetist, et c.? I ache to play again.