Chamber Music oboe
SKU: PR.114422520
Sonata for Oboe and
Piano. Composed by
Katherine Needleman. Set
of Score and Parts. 24+8
pages. Duration 15:45.
Theodore Presser Company
#114-42252. Published by
Theodore Presser Company
(PR.114422520).
ISBN
9781491134788. UPC:
680160683833.
After
decades as a renowned
oboe virtuoso, Katherine
Needleman was improvising
at the piano during the
quarantine summer of 2020
when her ideas congealed
in a powerful way. Within
a week she completed a
16-minute oboe sonata
inspired by the
world’s
overlapping crises. This
riveting three-movement
sonata bears the title
qua resurget ex favilla,
drawn from the Dies Irae
text referring to rising
back from ashes.
Needleman won the
International Double Reed
Society’s
Inaugural Commissioning
Competition by entering
her own recording of this
work, performing as
both oboist and pianist
from her living room. As
a result, IDRS
commissioned her to
compose a new work for
English horn and piano
which was premiered at
their 2021 Virtual
Symposium and programmed
for the live 2022
convention.
I’m
not exactly sure how, in
a life consumed by music,
I never put anything on
paper between the time I
stopped at age 10 and the
age of 42. I mean, I have
some ideas why, but that
could easily dissolve
into a feminist manifesto
or a condemnation of my
musical education and the
overwhelming culture of
American oboe playing,
the vehicle through which
I’ve made a living
my entire adult life.
Rather than go there, I
will just say this is the
first piece I put on
paper in my adult
life.Six months into
COVID-19 lockdown in the
US, the world was feeling
pretty weird. I had
familiarized myself with
the music notation
program, Sibelius, for
recent arranging
projects. I had written
some mockeries of A.M.R.
Barret oboe etudes in
response to an assignment
I was given (and did
appropriately first).
When I descended into a
dark chorale in the
middle of the fourth
mockery, I realized I
needed a new vehicle. I
wrote a short, ridiculous
piece for my
husband’s
birthday, and then, the
next night, when
improvising at the piano,
like I’ve done
since I was seven years
old, this piece came to
me. However, this time, I
sketched it out into
Sibelius. Over the course
of the next week, I found
notating and picking
permanent, official notes
to enter into the
computer challenging. But
it was all done on paper
in seven days, and I took
another few for dynamics
and articulations
thinking they might be
useful for someone else,
if I would ever be lucky
enough for someone else
to play it.I don’t
have much to say about
the music of qua resurget
ex favilla itself.
It’s a personal
statement couched in the
feelings of that time.
The US presidential
election was looming
large and ugly in my
mind, well, that and the
end of life as we knew
it, but I also had some
bizarre feeling that
everything would be
okay.
Piano with Improvisation
