Sarah Janet Francis (born 11 January 1938) is a British oboist known for her "refined" chamber music work.
She is an honorary fellow of the Royal College of Music (2001) where she was professor of oboe (from 1974), and a former chair of the British Double Reed Society.
[10] She reprised the work at the Proms in 1974;[11] Joan Chissell, in a Times review of the later performance, criticises Francis's tone as "small", noting that the sound did not carry adequately in the large space of the Royal Albert Hall, but considers her phrasing sufficiently expressive to do justice to the composer's "sensitive imagination", praising the "hypnotic ending, beautifully dissolving into sleep and silence".
[1][15] A reviewer in The Times praises her performance of Britten's Six Metamorphoses after Ovid for unaccompanied oboe in 1963 at the Wigmore Hall in London, writing that her technique was adequate for the work's "ruthless test", although some of the score's detail was lost, and praising her rendition of the "languorous" Narcissus and her "judicious" use of vibrato throughout the concert.
[23][24] Steven E. Ritter, in a review of the Howells for American Record Guide, writes that Francis shows "fluent technical ability" but criticises her for occasional "nasal and constricted tone", "flaccid rhythmical projection" and "uneven trilling".
2) by Gustav Holst, with the English String Quartet; Robert Anderson, in a review for The Musical Times, describes her as an "accomplished protagonist, weaving in and out of the subtle textures with effortless skill".
[25] She has recorded Oboe Quintets by the composers Bernhard Crusell, Rodolphe Kreutzer and Anton Reicha, all writing in the late-18th and early-19th centuries, with the Allegri Quartet.
[31] Nicholas Anderson, in a review of the first volume of concertos for Gramophone, writes that he enjoys "her rapport with dance measures, her clear articulation, her well-controlled vibrato and her ability to shape phrases gracefully", and compares her tone with Renato Zanfini, an earlier Italian oboist.