Year: 2010

This is an older article I starred in Google Reader. From the Wall Street Journal:

Gonzalo Ruiz is always on the lookout for another piece to add to his repertoire. Because he’d already mastered most of the finest Baroque music composed for oboe, Mr. Ruiz—a faculty member at New York’s Juilliard School and one of today’s most sought-after woodwind soloists—decided to look through J.S. Bach’s music for pieces originally featuring other instruments to transcribe into new versions showcasing his oboe. In the flexible practices of the 18th century, flutes were often substituted for oboes—Mozart himself once tried to pass off a rewritten oboe concerto as a “new” flute concerto—so Mr. Ruiz turned to Bach’s flute literature, which led him directly to one of the most famous flute-centric works in classical music, “Orchestral Suite No. 2.” How would it sound, he wondered, if transposed to an oboe-friendlier key?

Great read.