However, to compose a score that would only concern itself with this aspect of the oboe would be to deny the instrument's more virtuosic attributes, and so there are plenty of moments when the soloist is asked to play music requiring substantial agility.
[...] But in Mr. Rouse’s concerto, the principal test for the soloist is to produce seemingly endless lines that float weightless over aural backgrounds that shimmer and sigh in summer-afternoon languor.
Hushed string chords didn't point in any further direction but bristled with an energy that suggests the piece could explode at any time.
"[4] Fellow composer James Primosch of the University of Pennsylvania also praised the work, saying, "I was most taken with the slow music – exquisite colors, both in the sense of harmony and of orchestral timbre.
The contrasting fast playful sections are brilliant, but it was the ecstatic stillness supporting the intensely lyrical Woodhams oboe that was most striking.