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The Oboe Concerto belongs to Strauss's creative Indian summer, its charm, elegance and gentle humour recalling a bygone rococo age but enriched with his characteristic colouring and mellifluousness. [Leon Goossens]'s own style lends the music a glorious expressive malleability, a poignant nostalgia in the slow central movement and a deft perkiness in the finale. His recording was made before the score was published in 1948, when [Strauss] altered the ending for the version usually performed today.

His playing inspired many works for the oboe. Among the composers who dedicated works to him were Benjamin Britten, Francis Poulenc and Sir Edward Elgar, whose 1934 Soliloquy for Oboe and Strings, one of his last works, was composed in honor of Mr. [LEON GOOSSENS].

In 1977 the famous English oboe player Leon Goossens wrote that \"all serious oboists make their own reeds,\" a view generally held by modern professionals of the instrument. Its appears that in the 18th century this idea was not widely accepted, and that many oboists relied on instrument makers to provide this vital part of their instrument.

His upbringing saw no artificial musical boundaries - popular or serious, it was all there to be enjoyed and played. But by the early 1930s, times were hard. Musicians were badly hit by the slump, and the development of the talkies led to the end of work in the cinema; the [Sidney Sutcliffe] parents had to contend with long periods of unemployment. At 14, and in search of a regular income, Jock joined the army band of the King's Royal Rifle Corps, sending his wages home to his parents. It proved the turning-point in his life. The bandmaster needed to train up another oboist and Sutcliffe was volunteered. Within five years of starting, he was appointed principal oboe in the Sadler's Wells Orchestra. In his later career, Sutcliffe enjoyed seven fruitful years at the BBC Symphony Orchestra (1964-71), and then guested with many orchestras, including the London Symphony Orchestra. He made a popular recording of Baroque oboe concertos, recently re-issued. His refined, imaginative playing was little dimmed by the years, and even in his late sixties he could conjure up a fine performance of the Strauss Oboe Concerto. He taught for many years at the Royal College of Music, where his approach was always encouraging but never didactic. \"Lovely, but if I may just make a suggestion . . . \" was almost his catchphrase. He coached most of the national youth orchestras at one time or the other, and even this summer was due to help out with the NYO of Wales.

Mr. Goossens' interests were wide. He played and recorded popular music with such bands as Jack Hylton's jazz orchestra at London's Kit Kat Club. He was also an enthusiastic sailor and an active member of the London Corinthian Sailing Club. He was made a Commander of the British Empire in 1950, culminating a long ascent from his early playing days with the Liverpool Orchestra, when he was paid 22 cents a night plus an extra 9 cents if his services on the oboe's larger brother, the English horn, were required. An oboist with the English Chamber Orchestra, James Brown, calls Mr. Goossens ''the finest woodwind instrumentalist this country has ever produced. He was a great influence not only on myself but on woodwind playing in general.'' The clarinetist Jack Brymer said Mr. Goossens ''did more for the development of woodwind playing throughout the world than any other person.''