Piper of Dreams: the oboe music of Ruth Gipps

The music of English composer Ruth Gipps (1921-1999) has been featured several times on Classical Explorer: Opalescence: Piano and Chamber Music of Ruth Gipps; her Clarinet Concert on a cracker of a disc from Robert Plane, Reawakened; and songs on Delphian - this post includes a link to performance of her Second Symphony.

Gipps studied under Vaughan Williams and Gordon Jacob at the Royal College of Music (and also R. O. Morris, whose tortuous harmony and counterpoint exercises are part of my teens). Gipps studied both oboe and piano, so the amount of oboe music comes as no surprise, specially given she became, fo a time Principal Oboe of the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra.

So here's a disc of Gipps' oboe/cor anglais-centric music, with a guest appearance by Julian Bliss on clarinet, beginning with the Oboe Sonata No. 2, Op 66 of 1985. The music is markedly traditional for the date (this is the heyday of Boulez, Sockhausen e al) but it is both delightful and artfully crafted, and there is a lovely piquant edge to Gipps' harmonies. Both oboe and piano parts require dexterity, heard in spades here by Juliana Koch and pianist Michael Michale:

Although in three 'movements' and on the disc in three tracks this is really a one movement piece - the Andante doloroso that ends the first part morphs smoothly ion the lovely Adagio, a movement which moves to a gentle climax beautifully, the oboe soaring over the tightly-scored piano pat:

A hard-edged transition leads to a spiky, almost but not quite jaunty finale. The 'almost' bit is impotent, as there are so many slants to this closing panel. 'Doloroso' is a constant indicator in this sonata, and Koch's oboe certainly has teh ability to sing in teh most melancholy of ways. No surprise then that the piece ends quietly, and beautifully:

Full 46 years separate the First and Second Oboe Sonatas; and here, so donee pieces. The first is Kensington Gardens Suite, Op,. 3 of 1938. This is a student composition, its first movement, “Elfin Oak,” deliciously playful:

There is an "unhurried" (the tempo indication) central “Fat Pidgeon” before a simply lovely depiction of “Chestnut Trees": I just wish the final movement was longer:

Nice to have the sound of a cor anglais to break things up: there ear many sea songs but not so many songs about seaweed. So here is Sea-weed Song, Op 12c (1940), composed at a time when te composer sepciialised in cor angles performance.

It links well to the obo/piano Sea-shore Suite, anyway. Three tiny, eminently encore-worthy movements. Listen to how the music wafts in the movement of the water for the centra; “Sea Anemone”:

And so the First Oboe Sonata, in G-Minor and dating rom 1939. It is formally interesting in that the the first movement dominates, its sprightly Prestos set agains a more mysterious Allegro moderato:

If there are shadows in the first movement; the second resides in them:

It is a lovely piece, but most haunting of all is the titular rack, The Piper of Dreams, Op. 12b (1940) for solo cor anglais, a musical response to British painter Esther Canziani's painting of 1913:

If the structure of the disc was to present the two Oboe Sonatas speared by some delicious miniatures, it continues with Piper as bridge to the most substantive work here, the Op. 10 Trio of 1940 for oboe, clarinet and piano in which Koch and Michale are joined by Julian Bliss. This work stands splendidly alone in its overt magnificence. There is such compositional confidence to the opening Moderato, nearly nine minutes of expansive yet cloudy lyricism. Bliss' beautiful tone and natural phrasing matches Koch's obvious affinity for Gipps' music to a tee. And the blossoming of perfectly natural and contented counterpoint between four and five minutes in is a real achievement on Gipps' part:

The surprising (to my ears) increase in animation towards the end of that movement and its markedly gestural close feed to a dark slow movement, perhaps carrying some wartime gloom. The clarinet line is sporadically "warmed" by harmonies from the piano, but they appear more as flashes of a possibly misguided optimism. Passages for solo oboe seem markedly lonely as well as in context, hearkening back to both The Piper of Dreams (heard immediately preceding the Trio, remember).

The finale is no walk in the park, but striding, sometimes strident, always with an undercurrent of unease. The performance of the Trio is simply stunning throughout, but perhaps particularly in this movement were rhythmic steadiness is essential (it is marked Allegro titmice, after all):

Finally Threnody, Op. 74 (1990) for or anglais and piano (or organ, but piano here). The following is written on th score:

Wandering alone in a churchyard,

the mourner finds some consolation

upon hearing the church choir singing Psalm 121:

‘I will lift up mine eyes unto the hills.’

.. and indeed the cor anglais part includes a phrase for the string of Psalm 121 before a final “Gloria”. The piece is truly lovely, and the perfect close to this remarkable disc:

This is one of Chandos' most notable recent releases. A disc of oboe music by a 20th-century English composer could easily go under the radar; let's do what we can to make sure that doesn't happen.

The recording quality (Potton Hall, Producer/Engineer Jonathan Cooper) is absolutely top-notch.

The disc is available on Amazon here; streaming below.