Robert Howe Article
My Al Laubin story.
-Robert Howe
I met Al Laubin once, in the spring of 1973, my first serious oboe teacher, Isai Belinsky, helped me to order a new Loree oboe, which I paid for in advance. Those days, virtually all American oboists played Lorees or Laubins. Charles Pontes woodwind shop in Manhattan stocked Laubins. I played one there that summer and liked it very much, but my Lorre had been ordered. The oboe, CY 68, arrived in September. I fell in love with the horn. So elegant, so precisely built, so easy blowing.
One night, four months later, I was at the stage door of Carnegie Hall. I had come from Connecticut to hear a concert by the French flute virtuoso Jean Pierre Rampal and oboist Pierre Pierlot. Mr. Belinsky had bought our tickets. This was my first time at Carnegie Hall, which remains one of my favorite places.
The concert consisted of classical, solo and duo concertos. The New York Times review complained of an unending succession of thirds and sixths. The finale of the Mozart Oboe Concerto had interesting contrasts between French and American oboists, as Mr. Pierlot traded phrases with the ripieno players.
Isai brought us to meet Mssrs. Pierlot and Rampal after the show. Was it light snow falling or is that the romance of memory? As we waited, Isai said hello to a gentleman in the waiting line. This was Alfred Laubin, whose oboe I had not bought 6 months earlier.
I was thrilled to meet him. A little shorter than I, he wore a brown beret with a tassel on the top. I remember his face in the light as he spoke. He held an oboe case under his coat in the chill. We talked about trying his oboe at Pontes and my new Lorree about preventing cracks. Other oboists came up to chat, all treating him with deference.
When we reached the artists, Al gave the oboe from under his coat to Mr. Pierlot. Most likely he had done a quick repair for the visiting Frenchman. I did not eavesdrop. After greeting the artists, we exchanged pleasantries and went our ways.
For 27 years I played Lorrees. In 2000, I bought a pair of used Laubins in Grenadilla and Rosewood. I sold the Rosewood one quickly to Brent Ross of the San Antonio Symphony, who found it to be the finest oboe he had ever owned and ordered one in Grenadilla. Laubin 2374 was finished in 2010, a 10 year wait (!), and is my regular playing horn.
Strange life is sometimes. In the early 1970s I bought an imported oboe without even trying it out (the Loree), rather than a locally built instrument from a shop I could easily visit. A half century later, I use my Laubin twice a week in a community Symphony and a fine concert band. It makes me happy every time I pick it up.
Fast forward to today. I found that I was having trouble playing my Laubin oboe up to pitch in orchestra. I called the new Laubin shop and asked if they could raise the pitch up. They said they could, and did. It succeeded and I’m very happy with the result.
Robert Howe is an amateur oboist and community musician of 56 years’ experience. A practicing physician, he has an MA degree in Music Theory and has published extensively on the history of the oboe. He is happily married with five grown children, one of them a professional singer.