PROGRAM NOTE:
I love the idea of composing new cadenzas to old concertos, so I was delighted when Rosey Yiameos, my dear friend (and once fellow oboist, when I played) asked if I had a short solo oboe work that would serve as an encore to her performances of the great Strauss oboe concerto with her Sinfonieorchester St. Gallen. I had never written for solo oboe, so I made her a short cadenza drawn from Straussʼs material that she could play as an epilogue to the concerto. As of this writing the world is still very much mid-pandemic, and Rosey suggested something both “soulful and humorous” as most suited to our current emotional needs. Fortunately there is plenty of both in Straussʼs late masterpiece, so I revisit some of those ideas, ending my epilogue with a favorite, poignantly simple passage from toward the end of his slow movement.