The BDRS has been blessed with the generous gift of access to a repertoire of downloadable music for the rarer instruments of the double reed family by Jennifer Paull, whom you can read about here on Wikipedia.
Jennifer spent her lifetime playing, instigating, and creating a repertoire for the oboe d’amore, then publishing and recording it. This then spread to all the rare members of the oboe family, so there are many works that are for ensemble too – from simple to advanced. When Jennifer retired, she donated it all to WIMA. It is downloadable free-of-charge (see below). Every item has a sound illustration – either computer-generated or her own recordings where available. Realising that not everybody has a bass oboe or musette, or even oboe d’amore for that matter, there are alternative parts for oboe and bassoon where applicable. It represents a lifetime of work.
The repertoire is downloaded by many players and Jennifer wishes the British and Australasian Double Reed Societies to have direct links to it.
Each score contains a composer biography and a full programme note and cover so that putting it into a binder makes a complete book. There is the sound recording too.
The link to the archive is here and there are even Christmas Carols for a consort group by Ian Keith Harris, the Australian composer.
“Working exclusively for rare instruments is not a question of making money. It’s a question of creating the repertoire so that they cease to be ‘rare’. My goal has been to make them well-known to composers. When I first started working with the d’amore in 1964, there were between five and ten instruments in GB. Nobody wanted to play it or even knew about it and there certainly was virtually no repertoire. I am delighted to say things are now very different. I hope you and your members will avail themselves freely of it!”
Jennifer Paull, 26th June 2018
The BDRS is extremely grateful to Jennifer for this gift and is sure that much pleasure will be derived from this music.