The Oboe Brothers

Oboe playing, like bird watching and taffy pulling, is a passion that seems to run in families. The earliest famous oboe clan was that of Frenchman Jean Philidor, who played at the court of Louis XIV; after him, seven other Philidors put lip to reed. Today the reigning oboe family in the U.S. goes by the name of Gomberg: Harold, 42, is first oboist of the New York Philharmonic; Ralph, 37. is first oboist of the Boston Symphony. One night last week, at precisely the same hour, the Brothers Gomberg appeared before the men of their respective orchestras to perform as the featured soloists in two of the relatively few works specially written for the oboe.

Rich Without Reediness. Harold played Vivaldi's Concerto in D Minor; Ralph played Handel's Concerto in G Minor. To a casual listener endowed with the gift of being in two places at once it would have been impossible to distinguish between the brothers' styles (the Gombergs themselves sometimes cannot tell which one is playing a certain passage on an unidentified recording). Both play with the round, richly colored sound characteristic of all oboists who have studied with the Philadelphia Orchestra's famed, longtime Solo Oboist Marcel Tabuteau. Both give the oboe's warmly singing tone a fine quality of darkling brilliance, free of the reediness that afflicts many less gifted players. Both, when the occasion requires, can coax from the oboe inflections that, in the words of one 18th century oboe enthusiast, "go as easie and as soft as the Flute."

The sons of a Russian immigrant, the Gomberg brothers grew up in a Boston slum with five other children, all but one of whom became musicians. "It was a question," says Ralph, "of who would get what room to practice in; being the youngest, I got the bathroom." While the other children were studying violin, cello and trumpet, Harold and Ralph took up the oboe, criticized each other's playing, wound up as scholarship students in Philadelphia's Curtis Institute. Both Harold and Ralph got their jobs with their present orchestras when they were 26.

Strong as a Bull. Because good oboe players are scarce and because the instrument is extremely difficult to play, first oboists are often the most highly paid men in the orchestra, sometimes even better paid than the concertmaster. Most oboists make their own reeds, the shape and size of which largely determine the instrument's tone. Harold Gomberg, who has made trips to Europe in search of cane of the proper hardness, grain and color, maintains a studio where he spends dozens of hours a week whittling reeds to size (he uses as many as three reeds in a concert). The trick in oboe playing is to pay out supplies of breath in small, even quantities. This, says Ralph Gomberg, is a task roughly as taxing as "a strong man trying to juggle eggs without crushing them." Brother Harold is even more pessimistic about the ill wind he blows so good. "You have to have the tenacity of a bull." he says, "and the sensitivity of Alice in Wonderland; you have to learn to live with frustration."

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