The work was commissioned by the New York State Council on the Arts and was first performed in Carnegie Hall on November 9, 1975, by the oboist Bert Lucarelli and the American Symphony Orchestra under the conductor Kazuyoshi Akiyama.
The oboe is capable of doing things other than playing a beautiful melodic line, and I used some of its unique abilities as building blocks for my concerto.
This special quality gave me the idea of constructing a movement where there would be a dynamic arch which was reversed – i.e., the oboe would begin high and soft, drop to the bottom of its range for the music's "peak," then ascend for a quiet end.
His oboe is pitted against unreasonable opposition partly to extend its range, to stretch its rarely heard dramatic potential.
Forceful multiphonics are brought to bear in the scherzo, while the finale goes middle-eastern, with a pungent simulation (no lip or tongue contact with the reeds) of the Moroccan oboe, the rheita.