OBOE or HAUTBOY. The treble member of the class of wood-wind instruments having a conical bore and a double reed mouthpiece, the oboe consists of a conical wooden tube, com posed of three joints, upper, middle and bell, and of a short metal tube to which are bound by many turns of waxed silk the two thin pieces of cane that form the mouthpiece. These pieces of cane are so bevelled and thinned at the end which is taken into the mouth that the gentlest stream of compressed air suffices to set them vibrating and thereby to set up the rhythmical series of pulses which generate the sound waves in the stationary column of air within the main tube of the instrument.
The compass of the oboe is from B flat below the treble stave to F in alt, or even a note or two higher, with all chromatic semi tones. Its quality of tone is thin, penetrating and even somewhat nasal. It is possible to play on it diatonic and chromatic scale and arpeggio passages, legato and staccato ; leaps ; cantabile pas sages; sustained notes, crescendo and diminuendo, grace notes and shakes (with reservations).
The first appearance of the instrument in a musical work occurs in Sebastian Virdung's Musica getutscht and aussgezogen (1511). It there bears the name of Schalmey, and is already associated with an instrument of similar construction called Bombardt. There exists, however, much earlier evidence, in the illuminated mss. and in the romances of the Middle Ages, of the great popu larity of the instrument in all parts of Europe. The oboe was known during the early Middle Ages as Calamus, Chalumeau (France), Schalmei (Germany) and Shawm (England), while after the Renaissance we find instruments of this type ranged in complete families from the soprano to the bass and known re spectively as the little Schalmey ; the discant Schalmey ; the alto Pommer ; the tenor Pommer ; the bass Pommer ; and the great double quint Pommer.
The 17th century brought no great changes in the construction of the four smaller instruments of the family. Extensively used in France, they were there called "haulx bois" or "hault-bois," to distinguish them from the two larger instruments which were designated by the words "gros bois." Haultbois became hautbois in French, and oboe in English, German and Italian; and this word is now used to distinguish the smallest instrument of the family still in use.
The reform in the construction of the flute due to Theobald Boehm of Munich about 1840, a reform which principally con sisted in the rational division of the tube by the position of the lateral holes, prompted Triebert to try to adapt the innovation to the oboes and bassoons ; but he failed, because the application of the system denaturalized the timbre of the instruments, which it was necessary, before all things, to preserve. Further improve ments, however, made upon the same lines by Barret and later by Rudall Carte, have transformed the oboe into the most delicate and perfect of reed instruments, as which it constitutes one of the most valuable and indispensable members of the modern orchestra.