Léon Goossens


Léon Jean Goossens, CBE, FRCM was an English oboist.

Career

Goossens was born in Liverpool, Lancashire, and studied at Liverpool College of Music and the Royal College of Music. His father was violinist and conductor Eugène Goossens, his brother the conductor and composer Eugene Aynsley Goossens and his sisters the harpists Marie and Sidonie Goossens. In 1916 his brother Adolphe, a gifted French horn player, was killed in action at the Somme.
During the early and middle parts of the 20th century, he was considered among the premier oboists in the world. He joined the Queen's Hall Orchestra at the age of 15 and was later engaged by Sir Thomas Beecham for the newly founded London Philharmonic Orchestra, but he also enjoyed a rich solo and chamber-music career. He became famous for a uniquely pleasing sound few other oboists could match. Oboists of the past had tended to be divided between the French school and the German, but Goossens brought together the best qualities of both styles.
Goossens commissioned a number of works for the oboe from such distinguished composers as Sir Edward Elgar, Ralph Vaughan Williams and Rutland Boughton and collaborated extensively with other prominent soloists such as Yehudi Menuhin. Amongst his many pupils were the oboists Evelyn Barbirolli, Joy Boughton, daughter of Rutland Boughton and Peter Graeme, oboist of the Melos Ensemble.
During WW2, when Londoners found shelter from German bombs in the Tube, in the underground, Goossens was a reliable entertainer. He played so often that even a casual concert in Cornwall in 1975 filled the church and people wept, remembering the comfort of his solo playing below ground and into the morning, before the all clear.
He was appointed a Commander of the Order of the British Empire in 1950 and made a Fellow of the Royal College of Music in 1962. He married his second wife Lucie Leslie Burrowes in 1933 and there were three daughters: Benedicta, Jennie and Corinne.

Works commissioned/dedicated to Léon Goossens