Temporal Variations for Oboe And Piano was first performed on 15th December 1936 at the Wigmore hall in London under the different name of Temporal Suite. Although Britten was pleased with the work no further performance took place in his lifetime. The piece now though has earned it's place among Britten's most favoured pieces for Oboe and continues to delight audiences to the present day.

British composer Benjamin Britten’s Six Metamorphoses After Ovid is a piece of program music written for solo Oboe in 1951. The piece was inspired by Ovid's Metamorphoses and each of the titular six metamorphoses is based on a character from Roman mythology and includes an inscription summarizing their story. The music for each metamorphosis reflects its character atmosphere or plot – for example the fifth metamorphosis Narcissus (‘who fell in love with his own image and became a flower’) is marked lento piacevole and is meant to convey the act of staring at a reflection in a pool. By virtue of the musicbeing written for a solo instrument Britten allows the performer to be highly expressive so that the characteristics of each God can be fully represented through the performance. With a performance time of ca. 13 minutes this virtuoso solo piece will quickly become a staple in any intermediate to advanced Oboe player’s repertoire.

Pan (who played upon the reed pipe which was Syrinx, his beloved) Phaeton (who rode upon the chariot of the sun for one day and was hurled into the river Padus by a thunderbolt) Niobe (who, lamenting the death of her fourteen children, was turned into a mountain) Bacchus (at whose feasts is heard the noise of gaggling women's tattling tongues and shouting out of boys) Narcissus (who fell in love with his own image and became a flower) Arethusa (who, flying from the love of Alpheus the river got, was turned into a fountain)