Concertino for oboe

The “Concertino for oboe” and strings was composed in 1983 for the outstanding Swiss oboist Jean-Paul Goy.

It recalls the Baroque and classic traditions not only in its sequence of movements - Allegro-Andante-Allegro - but also in spirit. It is called a concertino not just accidentally, but to suggest - with its miniature dimensions and the exceptional refinement of the parts – a marked diversion from the Romantic style.

The first movement (Allegro) is built on the alternation of two musical features, the four recurrences of the fast beginning framing the slow parts. As against this asymmetrical rhythmic pattern, the second movement (Andante, Choral varié) suggests ordered regularity. The oboe plays a long cadence in the virtuoso final movement, enlivened by its dance rhythm, and then a short return of the material of the beginning rounds off the composition.

— László Gombos