This paper examines the changes made during the reign of Charles III
(1759–1788) to the competitive examinations for admission to the Royal Chapel
of Madrid, the most prestigious in Spain. The examination was structured in
three stages, with particular emphasis on the sight-reading of a sonata
composed specifically for the occasion by one of the judges. The sonata genre
was the most favoured among the compositions, so the first movement was key to
assessing the candidate’s technique for this institution. In this paper, the
first movement of Manuel Cavazza’s Sonata for Oboe (1777) for the Royal Chapel
of Madrid has been chosen as the subject of study. Using Michel Correte’s oboe
method (1776), a selection of the most complex passages from the piece has been
made. Based on these, a comparison has been drawn with the fingering chart from
Henri Brod’s oboe method (1890), revealing the organological evolution and the
level of difficulty required to gain entry to this institution.
