Oboe Quartet in F major, K.370

The Oboe Quartet was written by a rather younger but no less assurred composer for one of the outstanding instrumentalists of the day, Friedrich Ramm – “a very good, jolly, honest fellow,” the composer told his father, who “plays very well and has a delightfully pure tone.” There is something of the Ramm personality perhaps in the affable opening theme of the first movement, the ending of which demonstrates that Ramm was a pioneer adventurer in the upper extremes of the instrument. As for his “delightfully pure tone,” Mozart surely had that quality in mind as he scored the operatic oboe part of the Adagio. Although the main theme of the closing Rondeau is another congenial idea, Mozart was clearly not inclined to make things easy for his oboist friend, least of all in the tricky episode in the development where without warning he sets the wind instrument in 4/4 against the continuing 6/8 in the strings.

The Oboe Quartet was written in Munich in 1781 for one of the outstanding instrumentalists of the day, Friedrich Ramm, principal oboist in the orchestra of the Elector of Bavaria. “He is a very good, jolly, honest fellow,” the composer told his father, who “plays very well and has a delightfully pure tone.” There is something of the Ramm personality perhaps in the affable opening theme of the first movement and in the imaginative counterpoint he adds to that same theme when the violin re-introduces it as the second subject.

As for Ramm’s “delightfully pure tone,” Mozart surely had that quality in mind as he scored the operatic oboe part of the Adagio. Although the main theme of the closing Rondeau is another congenial idea, Mozart was clearly not inclined to make things easy for his oboist friend: the tricky episode in the development, where without warning he sets the wind instrument in 4/4 against the continuing 6/8, is followed by a perilous one-note-per-bar climb from top C to F - a note it is called upon to produce just once more, in the very last bar of the work.

The Oboe Quartet was written in Munich in 1781 for one of the outstanding instrumentalists of the day, Friedrich Ramm, principal oboist in the orchestra of the Elector of Bavaria. “He is a very good, jolly, honest fellow,” the composer told his father, who “plays very well and has a delightfully pure tone.” There is something the Ramm personality perhaps in the affable opening theme of the first movement and in the imaginative counterpoint he adds to that same theme when the violin re-introduces it as the second subject. It is clear from the end of the movement, as the oboe climbs to the F above top C, that Ramm was a pioneer adventurer in the upper extremes of the instrument.

As for Ramm’s “delightfully pure tone,” Mozart surely had that quality in mind as he scored the operatic oboe part of the Adagio. Although the main theme of the closing Rondeau is another congenial idea, Mozart was clearly not inclined to make things easy for his oboist friend: the tricky episode in the development, where without warning he sets the wind instrument in 4/4 against the continuing 6/8, is followed by a perilous one-note-per-bar climb from top C to F - a note it is called upon to produce just once more, in the very last bar of the work.

The Oboe Quartet was written in Munich in 1781 for one of the outstanding instrumentalists of the day - Friedrich Ramm, principal oboist in the orchestra of the Elector of Bavaria, whom Mozart had first met in Mannheim four years earlier and who had been with him in Paris in 1778. “He is a very good, jolly, honest fellow,” the composer told his father, who “plays very well and has a delightfully pure tone.” There is something the Ramm personality perhaps in the affable main theme of the first movement, introduced by the oboe in the opening bars, and in the imaginative counterpoint he adds to that same theme when the violin, not very enterprisingly, re-introduces it as the second subject. It is clear from the end of the movement, as the oboe climbs to the F above top C, that Ramm was a pioneer adventurer in the upper extremes of the top register of the instrument.

As for Ramm’s “delightfully pure tone,” Mozart surely had that quality in mind as he scored the operatic oboe part of the Adagio with its sustained notes in exposed situations and its dramatic downward leaps. Although the main theme of the closing Rondeau is another congenial idea, Mozart was clearly not inclined to make things easy for his oboist friend: the tricky episode in the development, where he suddenly sets the wind instrument in 4/4 against the continuing 6/8 in the strings and has it race through an apparently accelerated passage of semiquavers, is followed by a perilous one-note-per-bar climb from top C to F - a note it is called upon to produce just once more, in the very last bar of the work.

The Oboe Quartet was written in 1781 for Friedrich Ramm, oboist of the famous Mannheim Orchestra. According to a contemporary opinion, Ramm played “with a delicacy, a brightness, and a power of expression that enchanted the listener and with a practical skill possessed by few” - all of which his borne out by the evidence of the confidence mozart had in him when he wrote the work.

Delicacy and brightness are immediately brought to mind by the main theme of the first movement, and the elaboration calls for much practical skill from the oboist. The composer’s confidence in Ramm seems to have inspired a remarkable spontaneity and flexibility in construction. He is allowed to wander off the point according to his poetic whim or wit and to ignore such conventional duties as introducing a second subject. So the strings do what they can for a second subject and offer the main theme in the dominant, to which the oboe adds a delightful counterpoint and a playful extension. The consequence of this is that, for the sake of variety, the development is devoted to anything but the main theme; and the recapitulation has no second subject, apart from the oboe’s extension, to present in the tonic.

The slow movement is remarkable for its exploitation of Ramm’s interpretative qualities - not only his practical skill, which soon takes him in exposed chromatic steps to top E flat, but also his “power of expression,” which inspired the dramatic leap down to an E flat two octaves below. The same qualities no doubt encouraged too the melodic flexibility in the reprise of this otherwise simple ternary construction. In the Rondeau Mozart twice entrusts Ramm with a top F, which was a very tricky note for the oboe of the time, and again he is inspired to ignore convention when, just after the first restatement of the main theme, he sets his solo instrument in 4/4 against the continuing 6/8 of the strings. It is an awkward passage for the oboist but probably not as difficult as the virtuoso recapitulation of the first episode, which ends the work on the perilous top F.