Contrabass oboe Contrabass oboe The contrabass oboe is a double reed woodwind instrument in the key of C or F, sounding two octaves or an octave and a fourth (respectively) lower than the standard oboe. Current research, in particular that by hautboy specialist Bruce Haynes, suggests that such instruments may have been developed in France as part of an original attempt to maintain the complete family of double reed instruments when the oboe was created from the shawm. There was an instrument referred to as the basse de cromorne or basse de hautbois which was used by Lully, Charpentier, and other French
Oboe Concerto (Marcello) on a modern oboe. Editions of the D minor version of the oboe concerto with an ornamentation which is better in line with the possibilities of a baroque oboe have been proposed since the late 20th century. Another transcription of the concerto, as concerto a 5 for oboe, strings and continuo in C minor, is found in a 1717 manuscript. The type of errors in this manuscript seems to suggest that the transposition from D minor to C minor may have been produced by its scribes while copying. This manuscript writes the composer's name as "Marcello" without specifying a first