Six Etudes Romantiques - SOLO OB

Six Etudes Romantiques
for solo oboe
by Gilles Silvestrini (b. 1961) - French composer and oboist In writing these etudes, it was not my intention to make a pastiche. On the contrary, I spontaneously created a romantic language, while at the same time discovering emotions that had been profoundly sleeping in me. These six etudes for a cycle. They revolve around the key of e minor and are all related to each other through recognizable phrases. Hurlevent is obviously an homage to Emily Bronte's novel, Wuthering Heights. The torments of the soul mirror the wrath of nature. The second movement translates to "So, it will be on a clear summer day", and is reminiscent of the seventh melody of the song cycle, La Bonne Chanson by Faure, on poems of Paul Verlaine. Happiness, candor, and hope. The third etude is clearly divided in two sections of equal length, the first declamatory and sombre, the second ironically joyful. The Nocturne is a short meditation that expresses a secret, ardent and melancholic spirit. Movement five, The Beach at Grandville, a painting by Eugene Isabey, represents a group of women swimming during the Second Empire. But the sea is rough and the wind so violent that the innocent moments of relaxation turn into an hysterical uproar. The last etude describes a sunset on the seemingly never-ending sea. The incessant movement of the waves, the melancholy of the hour and finally, the cries of the sea gulls should ideally suggest instrumental colors, combinations of timbres- in a simply word, an orchestra.