A Short History of the Oboe
A SHORT HISTORY OF THE OBOE
Some of the earliest known relatives of the oboe are the aulos of ancient Greece and the tibia of ancient Rome. Pictured on Grecian pottery, aulos players often wore a lip band, presumably to help hold in the lips, which were pushed out by the air pressure of playing. Often the instrument was doubled, each hand fingering a different pipe. The aulos was associated with the cult of Dionysis rather than Apollo, meaning the instrument was considered to evoke ecstasy and intoxication rather than reason.
Many variations and elaborations that developed from the aulos and tibia spread east and west through Asia and Europe. These instruments, still in use around the world, include the sheng (China), the shanai (India) the zurna (Turkey), and the bagpipe (many countries), as well as a more direct relative of the modern European oboe, the shawm.
The shawm, which developed from the zurna, was, as stated by authors Geoffrey Burgess and Bruce Haynes in The Oboe,
“boisterous, festive and impressive, an ‘Hautbois’ or ‘loud-woodwind’, and it was heard in consorts of various sizes..…” Other Renaissance oboe related instruments included the crumhorn, with an internal reed not touched by the lips, and the racket, a small, compact instrument with long internal tubes.
The early oboe was most likely created in Paris, perhaps by several instrument makers associated with the court of Louis XIV in the mid 1700s.
Again from authors Burgess and Haynes, "...by contrast, the (new) hautboy was created to play solos, and its own particular character was often part of the ‘message’ of the piece it was playing.” This new instrument, what we now call the Baroque oboe, involved several bore
and mechanism changes from the shawm and encouraged the players' lips to be on the reed, allowing for more tonal control. The Baroque oboe became part of the developing orchestra and military bands.
The oboe has remained a popular solo instrument and active member of the orchestra and wind ensemble through the Classic, Romantic and Modern eras while changing its bore size, key layout and complexity, reed size, and scrape. Major innovations have been driven by the desire to increase the instrument’s volume to keep up with the increase in size of the orchestra, and adding more keys to improve intonation and facilitate trills. Recently oboe makers have experimented with creating an instrument with more consistent tone through all registers, less tendency to crack, or crack as badly, and an improved, more facile mechanism.