We are grateful to its editors and to Mr. Vas Dias for permitting us to reprint the article here. This work will be a simple, but I hope explicit, set of practical instructions on all aspects of reed making for baroque oboe reeds and particularly reeds for those copies of the oboe by Jacob Denner which I make. It is my intention to give those methods only, which in my opinion are the most practical and easiest to execute without having to buy expensive machinery, in an effort to maintain simplicity throughout, making this work accessible not only to experienced oboists but to beginners and students alike.
Baroque oboe reeds as discovered from historical sources.
Unfortunately, no definitely identifiable baroque oboe reeds have survived to the present time. Save for some broken fragments, possibly of later reeds, and a questionable oboe d'amore reed we have no definitive examples. There are, however, a number of pictures which have turned up in the last years, discovered by myself and others, which show oboes with their reeds dating back to the early years of the oboe. These illustrations have proved extremely useful in reconstructing reeds for baroque oboes. We have been able to verify the results of trial and error experimentation on exact copies of baroque oboes, later to be confirmed by playing them on the originals.