Late-Romantic Concertante Works for Wind Instruments (besides the horn)

[LateRomantic75]

I mentioned in another post the intriguing Bassoon Concerto of Italian composer Antonio Scontrino (1850-1922), which inspired me to start this thread...

It seems to me that there are a relatively minuscule amount of concertante works for wind instruments written in the late-romantic era. Now, there are a handful of concertante works for horn and orchestra from this period, but it is debatable whether the horn is truly a wind instrument. Besides, I see there's already a thread for Romantic Era works for horn and orchestra.

Well, the most obvious examples that come to mind are Strauss' Oboe Concerto and Duett-Concertino for clarinet and bassoon, works I'm not overly fond of but fill this niche quite well. I suppose Finzi's Clarinet Concerto could be considered late-romantic, but, whatever the case, it has to be the most achingly beautiful works ever written for a solo wind instrument. Wolf-Ferrari wrote a couple very attractive concertante works with winds (including an Oboe Concerto) which could be described as having a late-romantic harmonic language but being clothed in a neoclassical aesthetic. Also, there's Chaminade's brief but utterly charming Flute Concertino.

So, my main question is: Why so few concertante works for winds in the grand manner like the concertos composers were churning out for piano, violin, and cello at the time? The Finzi concerto is the closest example I could think of that has the emotional depth and dramatic content of concertos written for the "usual three" during the period. Many late-romantics (Tchaikovsky, Dvorak, Rimsky, Sibelius, etc.) exploited a great fondness and gratifying writing for the winds in their orchestral works. So, why didn't they write any works that would fit the subject in question?

Any thoughts?

[eschiss1]

Quick aside: I wouldn't dismiss the Strauss oboe conc. as fluff, exactly (not quite sure if I understand you to be doing that - probably not- sorry.) I've heard it fairly often, but only once in concert; that once I noticed an oddity (that I may have imagined)- that its 2ndary theme was just a hop, skip and a missed jump away from being a/the main theme of his Metamorphosen- and then metamorphoses even more closely to that Beethoven-y theme a few times during the concerto... - a fairly painful/scary thought, somehow, to me. I hope I imagined it.

On the general topic of the lesser specific gravity of Romantic wind concertante works - there's a back-of-my-mind guess of a tradition related to the Harmonie/Serenade, somehow. (Though hrm... Spohr's 1st, 3rd and 4th clarinet concertos are probably fairly good and serious in the context of his concerto output; his 1st and 3rd seem so, I'm less familiar with the 4th. Still, that's only 3 works...)

... Don't know. Interesting question, though.

[LateRomantic75]

Oh, I wasn't dismissing the Strauss Oboe Concerto as fluff! It is definitely a substantial work with a nostalgic feeling all its own. Like with many of Strauss' works, though, it fails to engage me enough to trigger an emotional response. Apologies for the misunderstanding!

I don't mean to limit this thread too much, but I'd like to keep the discussion within the realm of the late-romantic era. There's quite a few woodwind concertante works that were written in the first couple decades of the 19th century (e.g. those by Spohr).

While more mid- than late-romantic in harmonic style, there's Klughardt's lovely Concert Piece for oboe and orchestra, recorded by Sterling.

[TerraEpon]

First off, of COURSE the horn is a wind instrument, it's just not a woodwind instrument.
And Of course there ARE a number of those works, usually written by performer-composers. Actually I'd say there's easily more flute concerti than there are horn ones from that period. Even by at least somewhat known names such as Nielsen, Reinecke and Ibert (though he is perhaps more Impressionistic) plus smaller pieces such as Chaminade's Concertino and a lot of other French composers -- including Gounod. And Tchaikovsky was planning on a flute concerto before he died.
As for others, well not quite sure how late it is, but Berwald wrote a bassoon piece. Bruch of course wrote the double concerto for Clarinet and Viola, and Grandval wrote an oboe concerto, to name some random ones.

[chill319]

The pickins are slim...
A number of oboists have Rimsky-Korsakov's "Variations on a Theme of Glinka" in their repertoire. A number of clarinettists, likewise, R-K's Concerto in B-flat.
Both are moderately attractive -- and short (under 10 minutes).

[TerraEpon]

Of course, I dunno how I forgot about Rimsky (who also wrote a concerto for trombone and winds).