Reviews (excerpt):
In 2016 Andreas Mendel published two comprehensive 90-page volumes of exercises that seek to improve all technical aspects of oboe
playing. He separated them into a major key volume and another for minor keys. These were given the title "Technical Basics of Oboe Playing". The volume under review here is the JUNIOR Edition;
an abridged version that includes exercises more appropriate to the beginner player.
The production values are high with excellent design, printing and presentation. The content, as before, is a compilation of tried and tested scale drills but here with a limit on higher note range and with keys up to three sharps and flats. The layout begins with warm-up regimes, slow sclaes, interval work and help with transition over the break. This last in an excellent combination exercise that deals with co-ordination problems of recalcitrant fingers. Later, in differing major and minor keys, exercise based variously on triplet scales, 5-note scales, varying rhythmic patterns, staccato exercises, thirds and arpeggios built from broken chords make up the bulk of the volume. I am delighted to see the splendid warm-up exercise by Albrecht Mayer retained in this book. It is one I now use all the time!
Andreas Mendel is Principal Oboe of the Bruckner Orchestra in Linz. He studied with Jochen Müller-Brincken in Würzurg and Emanuel Abbühl in Mannheim. Andrea Glaser-Riefellner studied with Günther Passin and Reinhold Malzer at Salzburg Mozarteum. She is a highly successful experienced teacher in Upper Austria and abroad. She also mentors oboe teachers at the Anton Bruckner University in Linz.
This work is a highly recommended addition to the canon of pedagogical literature.
by
Geoffrey Bridge
Review from: "Double Reed News" the magazine of the British Double Reed Society, Autumn/Winter 2020 No. 127 page 30
Comment:
There are specifically two aspects of the book that I enjoy.
The first is the methodical way you order the exercises and
the other is the text in which you give some very good advice and
suggestions as to how to work these exercises.
It is a book that not only confronts the issue of digital facility but is a book
offering exercises that help with developing ones own musical voice.
Congratulations on writing a book that will help many oboe players.
Humbert Lucarelli
Professor of Oboe and Chamber Music
New York University, Steinhardt School
The Yale School of Music, Visiting Lecturer,
City University of New York, Graduate Center
The Hartt School, University of Hartford, Professor Emeritus
The Conservatory of Music at SUNY-Purchase (1980 to 2012)