- Imported from Italy

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- JS Bach - Transcriptions for Oboe

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- Schumann Romances

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Gonzalo X. Ruiz is one of America's most acclaimed historical instrument soloists. He is joined by the sublime continuo team of cellist Joanna Blendulf and harpsichordist Katherine Shao. The ensemble is named after Francois LaRiche, one of the first great oboists, and a Zelig-like character. He influenced the writing of Purcell, Handel, Telemann, Bach, and Vivaldi, and was a bit of a Johnny Appleseed for the oboe. LaRiche & Co. is committed to reviving and preserving the legacy of the oboe's 18th Century Golden Age. The San Francisco Classical Voice raved about LaRiche's debut: "...a spellbinding program. Though the members of LaRiche shone individually, it was their ensemble playing that made the afternoon truly remarkable".

Gonzalo Xavier Ruiz has appeared both as principal oboist and concerto soloist with most of the leading period instrument groups in America and has performed widely in the U.S. and Europe under conductors such as Christopher Hogwood, Nicholas McGegan, Jordi Savall, Gustav Leonhardt, Reinhard Goebbel and Mark Minkowski. His playing is featured on numerous recordings of solo, chamber, and orchestral repertoire. Equally accomplished on the modern instrument, he has performed as principal oboist of the Buenos Aires Philharmonic, New Century Chamber Orchestra and the Pacific Chamber Symphony among others. Mr. Ruiz was a prizewinner at the Brugges Early Music Competition in Belgium and for many years has been professor of oboe at the Oberlin Conservatory's Baroque Performance Institute. He has also taught at the Longy School in Cambridge and given master classes at Indiana University. An active chamber musician, he has made numerous reconstructions and arrangements, notably from the works of Bach and Rameau. Twice he's been a featured recitalist at the annual convention of the International Double Reed Society. Mr. Ruiz is an acknowledged expert in historical reedmaking techniques, and over two dozen of his pieces are on permanent display at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. With his ensemble American Baroque Mr. Ruiz is also active in the field of contemporary music and was awarded the 2000 ASCAP Award for Adventurous Programming. Ruiz also performs with American Baroque.

Baroque cellist Joanna Blendulf, a native of Sweden, has diverse musical interests, performing in chamber ensembles and orchestras throughout the United States. She received her musical training at the Cleveland Institute of Music and Indiana University, where she studied with Stanley Ritchie, Tsuyoshi Tsutsumi and Alan Harris. In 1998, Joanna received the prestigious Performer's Certificate from the Indiana University faculty for her achievements on baroque cello. Spending much of her time in transit, she is currently performing with the Portland Baroque Orchestra, American Bach Soloists, the Indianapolis Baroque Orchestra, Jubilate Baroque Orchestra, the Nashville Chamber Orchestra and the San Francisco Bach Choir. Joanna is an active chamber musician, touring with Mirable, American Baroque, Bimbetta, Musica Pacifica and The Streicher Trio, all based in the San Francisco Bay Area where she resides. She was named runner-up in the 2000 EMA/Dorian Competition for her recording of the Jean Zewalt Triemer cello sonatas and has recorded on the Dorian and Eclectra labels.

Katherine Shao, harpsichordist and writer/composer, has performed with many of California' finest classical ensembles, including the New Century Chamber Orchestra, Magnificat, and the San Francisco Symphony. A Master's Degree recipient from the University of Indiana's School of Music, she also works frequently in the contemporary music realm, and has incorporated new music and performance art elements in many of her endeavors, including the production of her unique work, The Path to the New Music, a radio drama about the composer Anton von Webern, for which she was the author and executive producer. She is the managing director of the award-winning ensemble, American Baroque, and appears on numerous recordings. In addition to her creative endeavors, Ms. Shao is a senior manager at a local software company, and takes care of her two young children.

Oboes are a French invention. Created in the music workshops of Versailles in the 1660's, they were a dramatic departure from their double reed predecessors, the shawms. Whether in small or large ensembles like Lully's orchestra, which used many more of them than are ever used by baroque orchestras nowadays, the oboe, along with the viola da gamba, became the quintessential French instrument, and the ambassador of the classic French style and culture. The instrument spread like wildfire throughout Europe, mostly in the hands of French players, but perhaps owing to its well defined national identity, didn't make inroads into Italy until the early 1700's. Even then, it was not the traditional French models, but higher pitched German adaptations, which finally captured the imagination of Italian musicians. What happened then was quite remarkable: in a "second wave" of sorts, Italian players completely redefined the personality of the instrument and eclipsed the French style wherever they went. By the late 1730's the oboe had shed its identity as the elegant courtly instrument of Louis XIV, and had become, like the violin, an instrument of operatic expressivity and a vehicle for technical display. One of the striking aspects of the Italian "oboe invasion" is that while the exploits of Italian oboists abroad are fairly well documented, the picture is much murkier in Italy proper. Thus the title "Imported from Italy": all the works on the program were taken to England, France, Spain, and Germany, where they met the success that makes them known to us today.

The mid 18th century was truly the oboe's Golden Age. Because the history of music has largely become the history of composers, the impressive number of star oboists of that time has become all but a footnote, but it was the players who were at the center of musical culture then. One can get an idea of how much musicians were valued by their remuneration, and in one great musical establishment after another we find that the first oboists, along with the first violin, keyboard, and cello, were paid what would seem now to be fabulous sums compared to the compensation received by their colleagues. Evidently, it amounted to a star system, much like the world of sports today.

I've always been drawn to this period and its music. It was a time when the professional wind players came into their own, their repertoire parting ways with what could be achieved by amateur players while remaining a true reflection of the public's taste. It was also a time when musicians in general began their emancipation from royal and church patronage, resulting in the embryonic stages of the modern public concert. It was a vital period, but I believe it remains, for oboists and audiences of our time, largely unexplored territory. The historical performance movement seems to have revived the baroque oboe in a mostly orchestral capacity. The reasons for this could become another article in its own right, but all the evidence seems to indicate that the early and mid 18th century as a whole was a far more "oboecentric" period than its modern day revival. Baroque orchestras today are mostly arranged along Mozartean parameters, and large swaths of the oboe's finest repertoire remain unperformed. This was my impetus for forming LaRiche & Co.

The first work on the program is a sonata in G major by Giuseppe Sammartini that begins with one of the loveliest pastoral movements in the oboe's repertoire. Sammartini was a legend in his day and is mostly remembered as "Handel's oboist". In fact, his relationship with Handel, though not extensive, was decisive. It seems that, like Handel, Sammartini made an exploratory trip to England in 1723 before settling there for good in 1729. During that trip Handel used his services three times as soloist, and went to great pains to do so. Sammartini's oboe was pitched a half step higher than was the norm in London at the time, so Handel had to write these three arias with a half step difference between the oboe solo and the rest of the orchestra. When Sammartini finally settled in London he worked for Handel's rivals, Porpora and Bononcini, often as an invited soloist, much like the star singers. Curiously, Handel stopped writing oboe solos around that time. It seems that although he had written extensively for the instrument before, only Sammartini could inspire him now. When he secured the star oboist's services for one season in 1737, he wrote him another three spectacular arias. Sammartini ended his very successful career as music master to the family of the Prince of Wales and died rich A generation after his death, the historian Hawkins wrote:

"As a performer on the hautboy, Martini was undoubtedly the greatest the world had ever known. Before his time the tone of the instrument was rank, and, in the hands of the ablest proficients, harsh and grating to the ear; by great study and application, and by some peculiar management of the reed, he contrived to produce such a tone as approached the nearest to that of the human voice of any we know."

In spite of Hawkins' obvious chauvinism and contempt for older player whom he had never heard, the quote confirms what the rest of the historical record suggests: with Sammartini's arrival, the dominant French style of oboe playing in England was abandoned in favor of the newer more extroverted Italian style. Many of his compositions survive and in my opinion they are of such high quality that their absence from the concert and recorded repertoire is truly puzzling.

The world's most splendid orchestra in the early 18th century was probably in Dresden. Its principal oboist for many years was none other than LaRiche. The orchestra once traveled to Venice for a season, where it acquired close ties to Antonio Vivaldi, perhaps through the concertmaster Pisendel who had been his student. It is perhaps owing to this that all of Vivaldi's oboe sonatas are preserved at the Dresden library. RV28, lacking any instrumental indication, was long thought to be a violin work, but its range, tessitura, and style most resemble oboe writing, and combined with its provenance and location within the collection, have led scholars to conclude that this is in fact an oboe sonata. I unwittingly gave the contemporary premiere of this work in 1993 in Cambridge.

In the spring of 1735, the Besozzi brothers took Paris by storm. Oboist Alessandro and his brother Paolo, a bassoonist, traveled from their native Turin and performed repeatedly at the Concert Spirituel. These concerts were so celebrated that a music dictionary published in 1780 still makes mention of them. Here is a contemporary description of their performance:

"the two Bezzuzzi, the one oboist and the other bassoonist, held little musical conversations together, which make one swoon with enjoyment; I cannot express the raptures into which one is thrown. I have never in my life experienced anything more enchanting."

This quote bears witness to the brothers' great refinement of execution, but what is most notable to us now is the quantum leap in technical prowess required to play the music of Besozzi compared to earlier oboe music. Enchanting these works may be, but they are quite difficult. The arrival of Besozzi probably provided fodder for the "Querelle des Bouffons" which pitted classic French style against the Italian influence. Italian string and vocal music had been making strong if controversial headway, but the oboe, perhaps the most French of instruments, had remained aloof from the "Vivaldi craze" of the early 30's. Besozzi opened the floodgates. Whereas it had been French players who spread the oboe all over Europe, now Italian players went to France. Some stayed and had prosperous careers. Most shocking was the appointment of the teenage Gaetano Besozzi, Alessandro's nephew, as top oboist at Versailles.

Domenico Scarlatti spent most of his career at the royal court of Spain where he composed hundreds of one movement sonatas that often combine his Italian theatricality with the native rhythms of his adopted land. He is the only baroque composer with the exception of JS Bach whose music is often heard at piano recitals.

Giovanni Battista Platti was a Venetian who spent most of his career at the court of Wurzberg. Although a celebrated oboist, he composed operas, keyboard music, and seems to have found his greatest success as one of Europe's most sought after vocal teachers. His sonata in C minor is a masterpiece of wind writing. The first two movements clearly show the influence of the sturm und drang Berlin style of C.P.E. Bach, while the last two are in classic Venetian (dare one say Vivaldian?) firebreathing style.

These performances were recorded live. They are a record of an actual musical event that happenned on September 22, 2002 in San Francisco. The microphones were in the right place, we played well and now we hope you enjoy our show. We have taken care to minimize audience noise and edit out applause, coughs, etc.

Gonzalo X. Ruiz

Gonzalo is the brother of Magnatune Funk Rock musician Matias Ruiz of the band Mutandina.