Legacy of Oboe

According to all those who studied with Tabuteau—including non-oboists such as Seymour Lipkin (Piano ’47), Aaron Rosand (Violin ’48), and Karen Tuttle (Viola ’48)—his impact on students’ musicality was unparalleled. His student John de Lancie (Oboe ’40) put an even finer point on it: “[Tabuteau’s] teachings at the Curtis Institute of Music … have undoubtedly been the strongest single influence on instrumental playing in America.”

Indeed, Tabuteau’s ensemble classes and private instruction were nothing short of transformative. In the early years of the school, there were no standard audition requirements for woodwinds, brass, and percussion. Prospective students were often admitted with little to no experience on their instruments. Woodwind players from the Philadelphia Orchestra were recruited to play in the Curtis Symphony Orchestra instead of students. According to some sources, the method of musical phrasing that Tabuteau developed with flute faculty William Kincaid—to which Tabuteau added a numbering system to clarify his wishes for how to emphasize particular notes or build a crescendo—was born out of necessity, as Tabuteau’s early students did not have enough knowledge for him to speak in purely musical terms. From these inauspicious beginnings came a complete metamorphosis: by the 1930s, audition requirements at Curtis had become more stringent, Philadelphia Orchestra members no longer sat in for woodwind students in the Curtis Symphony Orchestra, and Tabuteau’s pupils began to fill prominent orchestra posts throughout the country. Among them was Laila Storch (’45), who blazed a path as the first woman oboist to graduate from Curtis.

As another student of Tabuteau, John de Lancie was more than prepared to continue the excellence his predecessor had established, as both Curtis’s oboe instructor, and then later as the school’s director. Among many notable professional accomplishments, he inspired Richard Strauss to write the Oboe Concerto (1945) for him. By the time Strauss had completed the concerto, de Lancie was a junior member of the Philadelphia Orchestra and his rank prevented him from performing the premiere of the piece even though the composer desired it. Over three decades after succeeding Tabuteau as principal at the Philadelphia Orchestra, de Lancie was finally able to record the piece with the orchestra in 1987. He made several edits to the score to make it more playable, including adding rests to the opening two-minute long (!) melody that previously had virtually none, allowing the oboe soloist to breathe. As Alfred Mann (Composition ’42), a famed recorder player who briefly taught the instrument at Curtis, told him, “It really is Strauss’s and your concerto. The more I think about it, the more I realize that you touched his imagination at just the right time.”

An unbroken pedagogical chain exists today at Curtis with its present oboe teacher, Richard Woodhams (’68), who studied with John de Lancie. Principal with the Philadelphia Orchestra for over 40 years, Woodhams shares his expertise and his experience with Curtis’s five current oboe students. Their education will equip them to follow in the footsteps of the remarkable alumni who preceded them, such as those who continue the Curtis legacy by filling the Philadelphia Orchestra’s oboe section: Jonathan Blumenfeld (’81); Elizabeth Starr Masoudnia (’85), English horn; and Peter Smith (’91), associate principal oboe.