Word: gombergs
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Dates: during 1950-1959
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...sons of a Russian immigrant, the Gomberg brothers grew up in a Boston slum with five other children, all but one of whom became musicians. "It was a question," says Ralph, "of who would get what room to practice in; being the youngest, I got the bathroom." While the other children were studying violin, cello and trumpet, Harold and Ralph took up the oboe, criticized each other's playing, wound up as scholarship students in Philadelphia's Curtis Institute. Both Harold and Ralph got their jobs with their present orchestras when they were...
...passion that seems to run in families. The earliest famous oboe clan was that of Frenchman Jean Philidor, who played at the court of Louis XIV; after him, seven other Philidors put lip to reed. Today the reigning oboe family in the U.S. goes by the name of Gomberg: Harold, 42, is first oboist of the New York Philharmonic; Ralph, 37. is first oboist of the Boston Symphony. One night last week, at precisely the same hour, the Brothers Gomberg appeared before the men of their respective orchestras to perform as the featured soloists in two of the relatively...
...scarce and because the instrument is extremely difficult to play, first oboists are often the most highly paid men in the orchestra, sometimes even better paid than the concertmaster. Most oboists make their own reeds, the shape and size of which largely determine the instrument's tone. Harold Gomberg, who has made trips to Europe in search of cane of the proper hardness, grain and color, maintains a studio where he spends dozens of hours a week whittling reeds to size (he uses as many as three reeds in a concert). The trick in oboe playing...
...clothing industry, where the International Ladies' Garment Workers' Union has long had its experts working with clothing makers to set piece rates. When it runs into a manufacturer who claims he cannot afford to pay the union's wage scale, the I.L.G.W.U. calls in William Gomberg, director of management engineering, who can often show a company how it can cut costs without cutting wage rates...
Mozart: Oboe Quartet in F, K. 370 (Harold Gomberg, with members of the Galimar Quartet; Decca). Soloist Gomberg models his phrases with an elegance that would have delighted Mozart himself. The strings are shadowed somewhat, but play well...