Robert L. Cowart; Musical Virtuoso

Robert L. Cowart, English horn virtuoso, soloist with the Los Angeles Philharmonic for the past 15 years and one of the few devotees of that exotic instrument, has died at the age of 52, it was learned this week.

His wife, Beckie, said he had been battling cancer for three years when he died Sept. 27 although he continued to appear with the orchestra through the just-concluded Hollywood Bowl season and had also recently composed several pieces for his favored instrument.

Cowart took up the English horn, in reality a double-reed alto oboe pitched lower than that instrument, after working as a jazz saxophonist in Virginia.

A graduate of Indiana University’s School of Music, he played with both the Atlanta and Detroit symphonies and turned down a job with the New York Philharmonic to move with his family to Los Angeles in 1973.

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With the local Philharmonic, Cowart’s melancholy instrument was featured on such recordings as Dvorak’s “New World” symphony and Ravel’s “Rapsodie Espagnole” with Zubin Mehta and Carlo Mario Giulini conducting, respectively.

In 1986 he was one of two featured soloists on Andre Previn’s “Reflections for English Horn and Cello” when the conductor-composer introduced his composition at UCLA’s Royce Hall.

On Wednesday Previn called him not just a talented colleague but a good friend.

“Every symphony has certain stars and Bob was certainly one for us, . . . an absolutely extraordinary musician who really, genuinely adored music and felt everything he played very deeply.

“He was a musician who held Mozart in extraordinary awe but who also played and admired jazz. I don’t think there is a single member of the L.A. Philharmonic who wasn’t crazy about him. He was one of my closest friends.”

One of Cowart’s final efforts was to complete and publish a recently discovered Mozart fragment which featured the English horn and which he had printed as a one movement quintet.

And Cowart always said he considered his chair the “best job in the orchestra.”

“You don’t play all the time, but when you do you have wonderful little tunes to play, usually melancholy and sad. I have become a specialist in sad, sad tunes,” he told The Times in a 1981 interview.

Besides his wife, Cowart is survived by a daughter, two sons and two grandchildren.