Oboe of the family (it is usually pitched in E or F above the oboe), and the contrabass oboe (typically pitched in C, two octaves deeper than the standard oboe). Folk versions of the oboe, sometimes equipped with extensive keywork, are found throughout Europe. These include the musette (France) and the piston oboe and bombarde (Brittany), the piffero and ciaramella (Italy), and the xirimia (also spelled chirimia) (Spain). Many of these are played in tandem with local forms of bagpipe, particularly with the Italian zampogna or Breton biniou. Similar oboe-like instruments, most believed to derive from Middle Eastern models, are also
Oboe d'amore was invented in the eighteenth century and was first used by Christoph Graupner in "" (1717). Johann Sebastian Bach wrote many pieces—a concerto, many of his cantatas, and the "" movement of his Mass in B minor—for the instrument. Georg Philipp Telemann also frequently employed the oboe d'amore. Its popularity waning in the late eighteenth century, the fell into disuse for about 100 years until composers such as Richard Strauss ("Symphonia Domestica", where the instrument represents the child), Claude Debussy ("Gigues", where the oboe d'amore has a long solo passage), Maurice Ravel, Frederick Delius, and others began using it once