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Georg Feldmayr (1756-c.1818) has been met earlier in this series by way of his Concertante for orchestra with oboe and bassoon principals. He was one of the 'house' composers on the Öttingen-Wallerstein estate in what is now south-central Germany. The neatly-made manuscript score from which I worked comes from that very estate.

The first movement of Feldmayr's Oboe Concerto in C Major also seems to be have been envisioned as a Concertante, mainly because of the overwhelming involvement of the orchestra in symphonic style. Four ritornelli dominate the landscape in this movement and they contain beautifully integrated thematic materials that are extremely well thought out. The episodes for the soloist indicate that this movement is related to the concerto style utilized by Baroque composers, wherein episodes are developmental sections. No new startling themes appear here as they would in the piano concerto of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, and no special relationships of the third take the thematic material off into unexpected realms, as one would find in Haydn's music. But this is good solid writing. Also, it must be said that the part for the soloist is not overtly virtuosic. One gets the idea that this concerto may have been written for a young budding talent rather that a mature player.

The rubric 'Romance' indicates that the slow movement is intended to be utilized as a vehicle for variations created by the oboe soloist. In the Opéra comique, from which this genre is taken, a Romance would contain several strophes, and it became customary for the soprano or tenor soloist to vary each of these as they were all set to the same short strain of music. The fermata in this example is a place for the oboist to show off expertise in the performance of a cadenza.

The finale is laid out as a rondo comprised of three couplets surrounded by four exact repetitions of the refrain. Economy is the keyword in describing the writing of this movement; in many places the viola doubles the basso. The main motive of Couplet II is similar to the signature tune of the National Public Radio's newscast 'All Things Considered', a coincidence to be sure.