oboe

oboe
oboe1
/oh"boh/, n.
1. a woodwind instrument having a slender conical, tubular body and a double-reed mouthpiece.
2. (in an organ) a reed stop with a sound like that of an oboe.
3. (a word formerly used in communications to represent the letter O.)
[1690-1700; < It < F hautbois, equiv. to haut high + bois wood; see HAUTBOY]
oboe2
/oh"boh/, n. (sometimes cap).
a navigation system utilizing two radar ground stations that measure the distance to an aircraft and then radio the information to the aircraft.
[1940-45; special use of OBOE1]

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Double-reed woodwind instrument.

The oboe developed out of the more powerful shawm in the early 17th century. Intended (unlike the shawm) for indoor use with stringed instruments, its tone was softer and less brilliant. With its sweet but piercing sound, it was by the end of the 17th century the principal wind instrument of the orchestra and military band and, after the violin, the leading solo instrument of the time. The early oboe had only 2 keys, but in France by 1839 the number of keys had gradually increased to 10. With the decline in popularity of the military band, the oboe likewise declined somewhat in popularity. Today the orchestra generally includes two oboes. The oboe d'amore, an alto oboe with a pear-shaped bell, was especially popular in the 18th century; the modern alto oboe is the English horn.

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French  hautbois,  German  Oboe,  
 treble woodwind instrument with a conical bore and double reed. Though used chiefly as an orchestral instrument, it also has a considerable solo repertoire.

      Hautbois (French: “high [i.e., loud] wood”), or oboe, was originally one of the names of the shawm, the violently powerful instrument of outdoor ceremonial. The oboe proper (i.e., the orchestral instrument), however, was the mid-17th-century invention of two French court musicians, Jacques Hotteterre (Hotteterre, Jacques) and Michel Philidor. It was intended to be played indoors with stringed instruments (stringed instrument) and was softer and less brilliant in tone than the modern oboe. By the end of the 17th century it was the principal wind instrument of the orchestra and military band and, after the violin, the leading solo instrument of the time.

      The early oboe had only two keys. Its compass, at first two octaves upward from middle C, was soon extended as high as the next F. In the early 19th century several improvements occurred in the manufacture of wind-instrument keywork (wind instrument), particularly the introduction of metal pillars in place of the wooden ridges on which the keys had been mounted. This change greatly reduced the threat to the oboe's airtightness formerly associated with additional keys. In France by 1839 the number of keys had gradually increased to 10.

      French players before 1800 had also adopted the narrow modern type of reed. By the 1860s Guillaume Triébert and his son Frédéric had developed an instrument that was almost identical with the expressive, flexible, and specifically French oboe of the 20th century. The instrument in which the finger holes are covered by perforated plates, now the style of oboe that is widely used in the United States and France, was first produced by François Lorée and Georges Gillet in 1906.

      Outside France, the decline of patronage and the public enthusiasm for military bands resulted in radically different traditions of playing and manufacture. In Germany and Austria the many-keyed oboe had appeared earlier than in France, and the bore and reed had developed so as to produce an increased loudness that was clearly of military inspiration. This resulted, after Ludwig van Beethoven (Beethoven, Ludwig van), in a long period of neglect for the oboe until it was revived in the late 19th century, largely through the efforts of the composer Richard Strauss (Strauss, Richard). Germany and Austria generally adopted the French oboe by approximately 1925.

      The history of the oboe in Italy is comparable. The German instrument (with a tiny reed) survives in Russia; though capable of a certain refinement of tone, it lacks the piquancy and sparkle of the French oboe. In Vienna an oboe resembling the German instrument but more antique in character is played by the Philharmonic Orchestra and the Akademie. Its rather reticent and blending quality is perhaps caused more by the highly specialized reed than by the instrument's inherent qualities.

      The chief factor in playing the oboe is the making of the reed and its control by the lips and the mouth. Most serious players make their own reeds, although ready-made reeds can be purchased. The raw material for the device is the plant Arundo donax (giant reed), which resembles bamboo in appearance. It grows in warm temperate or subtropical regions, but only the crops of the southern French départements of Var and Vaucluse are satisfactory for reed making.

      There are several large varieties of oboe. The English horn, (English horn) or cor anglais, is pitched in F, a fifth below the oboe, and is believed to resemble J.S. Bach's (Bach, Johann Sebastian) oboe da caccia. The oboe d'amore, in A, pitched a minor third below the oboe, is made with a globular bell like that of the cor anglais. It was much employed by Bach and is also used in several 20th-century works. Instruments pitched an octave below the oboe are rarer. The hautbois baryton, or baritone oboe, resembles a larger, lower voiced cor anglais in both tone and proportions. The heckelphone, with a larger reed and bore than the hautbois baryton, has a distinctive tone that is rather heavy in the low register. Instruments in other sizes and pitches occur occasionally. Any folk or non-European double-reed woodwind may also be generically called an oboe.

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Universalium. 2010.

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  • Oboe — [o bo:ə], die; , n: leicht näselnd klingendes Holzblasinstrument, dessen Tonlöcher mit Klappen geschlossen werden: mein Sohn spielt Oboe; ich spielte auf der Oboe eine Sonate von Brahms. Syn.: ↑ Holzblasinstrument. * * * Oboe 〈[ bo:ə] f. 19;… …   Universal-Lexikon

  • Oboe — O boe, n. [It., fr. F. hautbois. See {Hautboy}.] (Mus.) One of the higher wind instruments in the modern orchestra, yet of great antiquity, having a penetrating pastoral quality of tone, somewhat like the clarinet in form, but more slender, and… …   The Collaborative International Dictionary of English

  • OBOE — and OBOE have several meanings: The oboe, a musical instrument of the woodwind family Oboe (navigation), a World War II British aerial blind bombing targeting system Oboe (software), a digital music backup service from MP3tunes Off by one error… …   Wikipedia

  • Oboe — Sf erw. fach. (18. Jh.) Entlehnung. Entlehnt aus it. oboe m. und frz. hautbois m., einer Zusammensetzung aus frz. haut hoch klingend (aus l. altus hoch ; alt) und frz. bois m. Holz (Busch). So benannt nach dem obertonreichen Klang. Älter Hoboe,… …   Etymologisches Wörterbuch der deutschen sprache

  • Oboe — Oboe: Der seit dem 17./18. Jh. (zuerst als »Hautbois« und »Hoboe«) bezeugte Name des Holzblasinstrumentes ist aus gleichbed. frz. hautbois entlehnt. Das frz. Wort ist aus haut »hoch« und bois »Holz« (vgl. ↑ Busch) zusammengesetzt. Es bedeutet… …   Das Herkunftswörterbuch

  • oboe — ‘Instrumento de viento’. Es palabra llana: [obóe]. Es incorrecta la forma esdrújula ⊕ óboe …   Diccionario panhispánico de dudas

  • oboe — sustantivo masculino 1. Área: música Instrumento musical de viento y madera, con embocadura cónica de lengüeta y orificios regulados por un sistema de llaves: Luisa está aprendiendo a tocar el oboe. sustantivo masculino,f. 1. Área …   Diccionario Salamanca de la Lengua Española

  • Oboe — die; , n unter Einfluss von it. oboe aus gleichbed. fr. hautbois, eigtl. »hohes (d. h. hoch klingendes) Holz«> Holzblasinstrument mit Löchern, Klappen u. engem Mundstück (Mus.) …   Das große Fremdwörterbuch

  • oboe — (n.) 1724, from It. oboe, from phonetic spelling of M.Fr. hautbois (itself borrowed in English 16c. as hautboy), from haut high, loud, high pitched (see HAUGHT (Cf. haught)) + bois wood (see BUSH (Cf. bush) (n.)). So called because it had the… …   Etymology dictionary

  • oboe — oboe; oboe·ist; …   English syllables

  • Obŏe — (ital. Hoboe, fr. Hautbois), Biasinstrument, aus Buchs od. Ebenholz, besteht aus drei in einander gezapften Stücken: Ober od. Kopfstück, Mittelstück (Stiefel) u. Stürze. An dem Ober u. Mittelstück befinden sich sechs Tonlöcher, von denen das… …   Pierer's Universal-Lexikon

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