Jennifer I. Paull

Musician, Author, Publisher

Jennifer Paull (born Jennifer Irène Schulcz), represents the third generation of publishers in her family. Her grandfather, Ignácz Schulcz, was a publisher-printer in Léva (then in Austro-Hungary; now known as Levice in today's Slovakia). This was also the hometown of their close family friend Eugene Fodor. Her uncle, Francis Aldor, was a publisher (Budapest and London) and cousin to Arthur Koestler. Aldor first published Fodor before the latter instigated his own Fodor's Modern Guides publication company (and, in another forward thinking' move, introduced André Deutsch to publishing). Aldor, Koestler and Fodor wrote for each other in this genre. Fodor studied at Grenoble University (France) with Paull's father, Pavel Schulcz. Through her father's maternal line, Paull is directly related to Giacomo Meyerbeer, Felix Mendelssohn and Arnold Schönberg.

Prior to eventually establishing her own publishing company, Amoris (International & Imprint), she had been Promotion Manager for Novello & Co. (London). Jennifer Paull also worked in the management of many well-known composers - Bruno Maderna (Concertdirectie de Koos, Laren, the Netherlands), Cathy Berberian and John McCabe (Jennifer Paull Management, London/Zürich) etc.

From an early age, she learned of the riches within the world of music through the enlightened guidance of a very patient piano and theory teacher. The discovery of the oboe d'amore, whilst an oboe and piano student at the Royal College of Music, changed both her life and that of this almost-forgotten beautiful instrument to which she subsequently dedicated her own. At that time, oboes d'amore were far more rare than they are today. Their proliferation is due, in great measure, to her pioneering work dedicated to the instrument's cause. Jennifer Paull remains the only soloist in the world, ever, to have devoted a career exclusively to the oboe d'amore.

Music in all its guises, as well as performance itself, enabled her to explore her passion much more intensely. This extended from solo recitals and broadcasts to orchestral concerts and masterclasses, commissioning and publishing new repertoire, music therapy and education, the organisation of concerts and festivals and working in artists' and orchestral management. The fascination with the Comparative Arts' perspective of her subject led Jennifer Paull to writing. Amoris Imprint published Jennifer Paull's book, 'Cathy Berberian and Music's Muses', in 2007.

In 2009 Jennifer Paull donated the entire Amoris International repertoire of scores to the Werner Icking Music Archive.

The lens through which I view my subject is one of a musician who delights in the juxtaposition and oneness of all of the Arts; their comparison to my own and the very lack of separation and division between.

Jennifer Paull, a synæsthete, has two daughters and two sons. She lives in Switzerland near the French border in a charming wine-growing village not far from Montreux. She is the mother of the celebrated luthier Patrick Hufschmid and Pascal Hufschmid, art historian and world-renowned expert on Photography, currently Director of the International Red Cross and Red Crescent Museum, Geneva.

Léon Goossens, the most celebrated, legendary British oboist of the XX century, spoke of Jennifer Paull's decision to devote her career exclusively to an instrument considered, at that time, as 'obsolete' in a recorded interview with Melvin Harris:

That lass has her head screwed on the right way. She's absolutely right to make the d'amore her main instrument. If you want to master the d'amore, you can't afford to be casual with it. It defies dabbling. I wouldn't relish the thought of having to play anything major on it at short notice. It can be a temperamental and tricky instrument until you learn how to humour it properly. It has to be coaxed, and nurtured, but the effort's well worth it when you draw that glorious voice from it...

Yes, she's right to concentrate on it as her first choice. I've heard some dreadful playing from people who thought they could just pick it up and breeze away. And there's a bonus of course. If you enchant people with the d'amore sound, then you'll be sure to attract composers eager to write for you. That's why she shows great wisdom by specialising. Good luck to her!

'The Melvin Harris Collection' of Léon Goossens' complete recordings can be consulted in the Music Library, University of Washington, Seattle, USA.

Switzerland, 2018