FATHER'S DAY (2024)

For Oboist Playing Oboe, Oboe d'Amore, and English Horn 

& Strings 

Soloist: 1 player doubling on Oboe, Oboe d'Amore, and English Horn 

Strings:

Violin 1

Violin 2

Viola 

Violoncello

Contrabass

The strings may be any size ensemble from full string orchestra to solo strings as an alternative chamber version for oboist and string quintet (V1, V2, VA, VC, CB).

Duration ca. 13'

(Full score, parts, and piano reduction forthcoming).

The word “Father” connotes as many different meanings and emotions as there are people in the world, encompassing the range of feelings from joy to despair, hope and disappointment, expectation and frustration, achievement and loss, laughing and crying.  Everyone who has ever lived has had a biological father, known or unknown, and every father of every kind who has played a role in the lives of their children has in turn either been mourned by their children, or in some cases experienced the anguish of mourning their child.  The role of “father” can be many things played by many different types of humans: we have all heard the phrase “she was both a mother and a father to her children” and the special love and care of any type of parent, anyone who is given or  takes on the care of a child,  is encompassed in the word.

Father’s Day for oboist and strings is in three continuous sections defined by the instrument the soloist plays in turn: oboe, oboe d'amore, and English Horn.  The three sections reflect the character of each instrument, representing that there are many different types of fathers and many different "eras" of both childhood and fatherhood.   The oboe family includes three instruments that sweetly descend as if one person's super-voice from soprano (oboe), to alto (oboe d'amore), to tenor (English Horn).  Each retains its individual character but remains part of one expanded persona, related but different like a family, or perhaps representing different time periods in a life such as youth, middle age, and sage wisdom.  In this work, the the three instruments perhaps symbolize both father and child in their youth, adulthood, and maturity. 

The work begins intensely, descending cellos and basses act throughout the work as a "fate" motif, to convey something common to all parents: hopes and fears amidst the uncertainty of fate governing every new life.  No matter what parents attempt, fate may take a life in directions unforeseen.  Above this background, strings rise as if depicting the "creation of the world" and a new life from which the oboe bursts forth in joy.  The wider range of emotions, both dark and light, quickly emerge and throughout the work succeed each other and morph at a rapid pace: parenthood, and childhood, in condensed time. 

Father's Day uses as background inspiration several children’s folk songs and nursery rhymes, though except for some quotations for dramatic effect, these timeless simple melodies serve more as an unheard reference  point to express the experience of parenthood.  In the first "oboe" section  for example the double basses burst into boisterous song, a father singing with his children, derived from the contours and drama but not the actual notes of the English children's rhyme "Oranges and Lemons," which song influences the oboe solo as well without being actually stated. 

The double basses are a "father figure" in this work throughout, including the middle "oboe d'amore" section where a gentle bass ostinato background uses the open tuned strings of the instrument in fourths (E-A-D-G) as the bass line above which we hear a floating aria by the aptly named Oboe d'amore.  Throughout, the oboist is part of a drama, in a sense the entire work is an aria telling a story of the emotions surrounding fatherhood.

The middle section for Oboe d’amore continues with a cadenza accompanied by pizzicato (plucked) strings playing guitar-like strummed chords,  perhaps a distant echo of songs sung at home with children and  a guitar.  This leads into a reflective moment of past time, quoting Brahms’ “Lullaby” but in a cloud of deep multiple memories from afar as the accompanying strings can be heard simultaneously playing far-off melancholy echoes of “Rock a Bye Baby” (violins) and “Hush Little Baby” (cellos).   In this floating "memory bubble" a solo double bass plays very high in its "falsetto" range, in the way that fathers sometimes find themselves speaking in a soft high voice to young children.

The final section for English Horn begins with a memory and development of the work's joyous oboe opening, seen now from the perspective of passing years via the English Horn's deep sonorous tenor voice. This voice then explores a lyrically intense variation on the opening phrase of  “Hush Little Baby,” the American folk song whose words are a mini-tragedy about a father's never ending desire to provide for his child even if each "gift" does not last. Ultimately, a moment of quiet glowing warm song is achieved as the English Horn plays the full melody, which descends into a minor key before the work concludes by fading into time and memory, a lullaby, as must all fathers.

The folk songs referenced in Father's Day also have inherent dramatic qualities arising from the original lyrics, words that many listeners will know and remember as they listen to the melodies.  It is a noted quality of nursery rhymes and lullabies that they often refer to very real dangers while offering a vision of love and sanctuary in response.  For example “Rock a Bye Baby” arrives at a moment of peril: “when the bough breaks, the cradle will fall, and down will come baby, cradle and all.” “Hush Little Baby” is a wrenching song about a "daddy" who, despite all efforts, over and over, is not able to provide what he wants to provide for his child, yet will try again. “Oranges and Lemons," a song not heard directly (until semi-evoked in  the violin solo at the end of the work) but whose mood and contours haunt the opening section for oboe, is mostly about London church bells, but has a disturbing final verse warning of the London executioner. Perhaps these folk songs have endured for centuries because they contain elemental truths about the fears, and hopes, of the parent who sings them.  For many, the first experience of music is such intimate songs, sung softly by parent to child, a  gift of love from a time before memory.

The inspiration for Father's Day came about following a dinner conversation with Nicholas Daniel about his children.  Nick spoke with a profound natural deep love and pride about his son and daughter and their very different journeys and challenges,   It was inspiring and unforgettable and a glimpse of the eternal love that parents can aspire to have for their children and for the future.  It was in its way, an aria sung by parents for tens of thousands of years, and I have endeavored to portray these universal truths in Father's Day. 

Nick is also a world renowned oboist.  That means the work could both musically and symbolically be varied in the way the soloist is heard via the use of three members of the oboe family in descending range just as fathers also age over time.    Fathers and their children can be varied in who they are and become, thus the three different types of oboe used by the soloist symbolize in sound the different ways that love defines what it means to be human.

Father's Day is dedicated to Nicholas Daniel.