If You Think This Instrument Is Hard to Play, Try Building One

Jesse Green’s New York Times bio notes that he “played oboe (poorly) for many years.” Poorly or not, his working knowledge of the instrument gives his profile of the Laubin oboe company and its would-be savior its finest lines. Oboes, Green writes, “are essentially handmade sculptures that sing.” He’s a pleasure to read on the maddening physics of making them sing (“You basically blow air at high pressure through tightly pursed lips into a tiny lentil-shaped opening between two pieces of dried grass”), the instrument’s litany of nicknames (“the ill wind that blows no good”), and their unwieldy tones (“given to sudden possession by screeching imps and wobble goblins”). A thoroughly entertaining study of an imperiled precision instrument.

The company, named for its founder, Alfred Laubin, was a super-high-end atelier, less about commerce than craft. In 90 years, only 2,050 Laubin oboes were produced. Alfred made the first, in 1931, by cranking a hand-held drill to create the bore and, according to legend, melting his wife’s silverware to fashion the keys. His son, Paul, continued the family tradition, blowing pipe smoke through each new joint to test for cracks. When he died, in 2021, he was alone in his shop, mid-oboe. He had finished at most four in his final year.