Britten wrote well for the oboe, and for three oboists in particular. Sylvia Spencer was a contemporary from his Royal College of Music days, who persuaded him to compose what nearly turned out to be 'a large and elaborate suite' (so he wrote to her in 1935), though only these two entertaining little Insect Pieces survive. Perhaps some of the ideas resurfaced in the Temporal Variations, a much more elaborate creative enterprise dating from the following year. Spencer also gave an early performance of the Phantasy Quartet of 1932, originally written for Leon Goossens and much performed by him in those years but not so much, I think, latterly. There is a good deal of the influence of his teacher Frank Bridge here, not only in the fantasy form which Bridge espoused; it is also one of the young Britten's most complex pieces, as was demonstrated in the Mitchell-Keller symposium Benjamin Britten (London: 1952) with a formidable diagrammatic analysis by Paul Hamburger (Britten himself is said to have contemplated this in surprise and muttered something about not realising what a clever subconscious he must have). It is a very effective piece, not easy to bring off, and in places setting problems of balance between high notes on the oboe and powerful string chords. The problems, rather than studio solutions, survive on this record, expertly though Schmalfuss plays.
The Metamorphoses were written much later, in 1951, for Joy Boughton, daughter of Rutland and a fine player in the English Opera Group orchestra. They have become part of the repertory of every oboist, not too hard technically but a real challenge to bring off well. This Schmalfuss most certainly does, with complete fluency and a sensitive response to the differing nature of Ovid's characters as Britten sees them.'