Owen Gregory

Cor Anglais

I’m a professional independent line editor and copy editor, providing services to writers and publishers. I edit creative nonfiction, academic scholarship, literary fiction, and all kinds of other writing.

January 2013

Along with countless thousands of kids in the 1970s and ’80s, I played recorder at primary school. When I was in my last year there, my mum suggested I might like to move on from recorder to oboe. My older brother had started playing double bass in secondary school, so perhaps she was concerned about fitting us in to the car to go to rehearsals! I liked the oboe’s sound and I took to it quite quickly, despite not being keen on practising.

I first heard a cor anglais up close when my local youth orchestra performed Dvorak’s New World. But a cor was out of reach for me until about twelve years ago. Now I’m much happier on cor than oboe, and I’m happiest when playing music with a dedicated part rather than having to juggle two instruments.

In 2001 my wife (a flautist) and I moved to Birmingham from Nottingham, where we’d played with several different ensembles. But we didn’t get around to seeking out new orchestras for several years. Eventually Anne Hagyard got in touch to ask if I could fill in at a rehearsal, which I remember being very out of practice for. But that led to being asked to play third oboe in Shostakovich 4 in a freezing Tewkesbury Abbey in February 2009. I depped a bit over the next couple of years and made up the numbers for really large works (including Mahler 10 in 2011) before joining the orchestra in January 2013.

There have been many highlights: Mahler 3 (February 2014) with bird-call glissandi – on cor anglais? I had a go! Mahler 8 (March 2016); Shostakovich 11 (December 2018): when he wants you to feel the fear in that last movement solo up to top D; Stravinsky Symphony in C (March 2019) with the BPO woodwind playing an absolute blinder; ‘The Swan of Tuonela’ by Sibelius (December 2022); Enescu’s Decet for Wind Instruments (February 2023); and getting to play oboe d’amore in Holst’s ‘Somerset Rhapsody’ (October 2024) – to name a few. But underlying all these great moments has been playing alongside some of the friendliest and most talented and supportive musicians. Anne Hagyard (in whose memory BPO played ‘Tuonela’) became a big influence on the way I approach performing, and Hazel Bates was a great oboe section leader as well. BPO’s woodwind are fantastic and it’s a pleasure to be part of that.

Every fluffed note is something I’d rather forget! Each big solo seems to contain one, lurking where I least expect it. For reasons I’ve yet to fathom, I usually play my best in the final rehearsal and trip over the duff note in concert. Oh well. One performance that has stuck in my mind for the wrong reasons was in 2016, a farewell concert to the Adrian Boult Hall. We were playing Ravel’s piano concerto in G, which has a long, slow, absolutely gorgeous cor anglais solo in the second movement. I’m a nervous performer at the best of times, and my nerves got the better of me on this occasion. The solo began well, but I quickly found myself breathless, feeling very hot and a bit shaky, with a roaring in my ears. I made to the end but felt dreadful and have no recollection of how the music came across. I got a second chance at it in 2022, and it went rather better. But still not quite right.

Favourite: Too many to mention, but (in no particular order and the list will be different tomorrow) Shostakovich, Stravinsky, Beethoven, Mahler, Copland, Hindemith, Rachmaninov, R Strauss. Brahms is growing on me.

Least favourite: Bruckner (sorry, brass) and Schumann.

One more go at the Ravel piano concerto in G? Maybe Shostakovich 8, though the cor solo might be what finishes me off!