Works For Oboe & Piano: A.mayer(Ob)

The oboe is one of the most affecting of instruments, the plangent hero of many a Bach cantata and a Brahms slow movement, yet it does not have a significant body of sonata or concerto repertoire written for it. Albrecht Mayer is one of those players who makes one wonder why this is the case, since he plays it and its near-relations, the oboe d'amore and cor anglais, with great expressiveness and agility. In fact, he plays so well that he became principal oboist of the Berlin Philharmonic at the age of 28.
In Mayer's hands, the eloquent and touching Schumann Romances emerge as a major statement of that composer's troubled later years, and there is also great charm in his arrangements of three Schumann songs. Equally disarming are the Two Fantasy Pieces of Carl Nielsen, very early works in which one can already hear the distinctive voice of Denmark's greatest symphonist, and the post-impressionist musings of 'Le repos de Tityre' by 20th-century French composer Charles Koechlin.