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Tempo

Not only is oboist Christopher Redgate a new music virtuoso, he is also involved in instrument building, helping to research and design the Howarth-Redgate oboe and lupophon. The former facilitates the use of extended techniques—microtones, harmonics, alternate fingerings, multiphonics and altissimo playing—while the latter is a formidably resonant bass oboe.

One gets to hear both of these instruments in action, as well as the estimable Coull Quartet, in Edward Cowie’s 2013 piece The Colours of Dark Light. Dedicated to physicist Michael Berry and based on concepts from his work, Cowie’s piece makes abundant use of various extensions from the list mentioned above. In addition, the string parts are marvellously crafted to match colours with winds, in places juxtaposing percussive pizzicato with long lines and in others accumulating variegated sonorities. The last movement features the sepulchral tones of the lupophon: a most impressive addition to the oboe family.

Sam Hayden’s surface/tension (2012) also incorporates fascinating ensemble work, this time pairing Redgate with pianist Stephen Robbings. The first movement features ricochets from piano attacks to oboe melismas; the second reverses the proceedings, having oboe lines careen downward and summon bass notes. The final movement features a colloquy between angular piano lines and oboe multiphonics.

Solo pieces by Paul Archbold and Dorothy Ker are equally impressive. Archbold’s Zechstein (2015) is a feast of multiphonics. Written in close collaboration with Redgate, it shows this capacity of the Howarth-Redgate oboe to best advantage. Ker’s Clepsydra (2012) also underwent a period of R&D, with composer and oboist sharing discoveries about the new instrument’s potential over the course of the piece’s genesis. Vertiginous altissimo lines, timbrally rich fingerings, and tremendously forceful multiphonics are employed, as well as a spate of trills and chromatic runs.

Christopher Fox’s Unlocking the Grid (2015), for oboe and electronics (supplied by Archbold), closes the programme. Many of the pieces on New music for a New Oboe Volume 2 revel in virtuosity. Instead, Fox delights in exploring its capacities for subtlety and suppleness. The piece demonstrates Redgate’s prodigious breath control and capacity, using the Howarth-Redgate oboe, to subtly modulate micro-intervals during sustained passages. A 16-minute essay, Unlocking the Grid matches silence and soft dynamics alongside intense passages of close-interval beating between instruments and tape that provide intriguing contrasts.

Indeed, contrast, writ large, seems to be the programmatic ideal for this recording. Engaging throughout, Redgate’s omnivorous predilections and superlative musicianship are eclipsed only by his excellent taste in collaborators.