Hi, my name's Jill.
I'm the cor anglais player in the Philharmonia Orchestra.
So this is a cor anglais.
It is a member of the oboe family.
It's like the alto member of the oboe family.
It looks very similar to the oboe.
It's made of the same wood which is grenadilla wood.
The key work is very similar,
but visually, it has an onion shaped bell
and at the top, the double reed
which is the same as the oboe
sits on top of a metal tube or crook.
It sounds different to the oboe,
in that, it's much lower.
I'll just demonstrate that.
(cor anglais playing)
It's much more melancholic than the oboe
and it's generally used for very sad tunes.
The most famous one is probably the Second Movement
from Dvorak's New World Symphony.
(cor anglais playing)
It's very much a solo instrument within the orchestra.
It has lots of very big solos.
And it does support the oboe section as well
as it's lower in pitch,
but generally, it's a solo instrument.
The sound isn't quite as piercing as the oboe
which means that it's much more mellow.
The tone is much more mellow
which makes it more difficult
to actually get through the orchestra.
An oboe because of its piercing sound
can just get straight through.
So, it can play so many different things.
Whereas a cor anglais, generally,
when it has a solo within the orchestra,
there isn't very much else going on,
so it's usually in much more subdued areas,
I would say.
(orchestra playing)
Once your fingers have obviously gone down
these keys here that they all fit on,
this one here is operated by that little finger there
and this one here is then operated here.
You see it pressing that one down there.
That's how you get to those, basically,
or else you'd be using your feet.
(laughing)
Often, when I sort of ask if I go and do classes,
even with older students, I'll say,
"So, how do you make a sound on the cor anglais?"
Or oboe for that matter 'cause it's the same.
I'll say, "How do you make the sound?"
They say, "You blow down it."
So I go, "Okay."
(blowing)
Of course, you don't blow down it.
In actual fact, what happens is you need this reed
which is two pieces of cane clumped together
with this rather nice pink thread.
They're clumped together
and when you blow down them,
they vibrate together
and that's what makes a ridiculous sound like this.
(reed squeaking)
It's like when you get a blade of grass
and put it between your thumbs and you blow like that.
It's exactly the same thing.
It's vibrating together.
So, that is how you make the sound, basically.
(reed squeaking)
(cor anglais playing)
That's about as high as it goes.
This is the reed.
It consists of two pieces of cane.
We all make these as professional oboists.
We have to make these which is a pain,
but we have to do it.
And you can see the thread here.
We tie this onto this metal bit at the bottom
which is actually called a staple.
That metal bit just goes up to the top of the thread.
So, we wind the cane on with the thread
and as you can see, it's open at the top.
If I just squeeze it open there.
And then when you blow down it,
these two pieces vibrate together.
(reed squeaking)
Like that.
And because we all use incredibly different reeds,
we need to make them ourselves,
so that we can individualise them.
I spend... It's very difficult to say, actually.
I probably spend a couple of hours a week on reeds
I would say, yeah.
You can make ten reeds
and probably only two of them will work
which is why it's so frustrating.
Quite often we are required to play both cor anglais
and oboe because as cor anglais players,
we originally started off on the oboe.
So, we are in pieces of music, often at the front,
it will say cor anglais doubling oboe
which means we have to play both instruments.
Not at the same time, obviously,
but it means that we all have a special stand
which sits by the side with both instruments on
and I'm kind of switching them about like this.
And it is quite tricky because what happens
with the reeds is that they dry out
when they're not being played on,
and so, you can sometimes pick up your instrument
and think it's going to play and it's all dried out
and you end up just going...
(laughing)
And it doesn't work at all which is quite embarrassing.
But yeah, we are expected to play the oboe as well.
(light music)
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about the instruments in the orchestra,
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featuring Esa-Pekka Salonen and the Philharmonia Orchestra.
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(orchestra playing Berlioz's Symphonie Fantastique)
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Hear the inside scoop in Audio Commentaries
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