Gordon Jacob

Gordon Jacob studied at Dulwich College and Royal College of Music. Training under Adrian Boult, Herbert Howells and Hubert Parry is recorded. Helen Glatz and Arthur L. Williams are recorded as having studied under Gordon Jacob. The recorded working language is English. Subjects and genres recorded for the work are classical music. Employment is recorded with Royal College of Music. Distinctions recorded are Commander of the Order of the British Empire and Fellow of the Royal College of Music.

• Name — Gordon Jacob • Honorific Suffix — CBE • Birth Name — Gordon Percival Septimus Jacob • Born — 5 July 1895 • Birthplace — London, England • Occupation — Composer • Genre — Orchestral, wind band, classical • Instrument — Piano • Died — 8 June 1984 • Place of death — Saffron Walden, England

Jacob was born in Upper Norwood, London, the seventh son and youngest of ten children of Stephen Jacob, and his wife, Clara Laura, daughter of Gordon Forlong. Stephen Jacob, an official of the Indian Civil Service based in Calcutta, died when Gordon was three. One of his older brothers was Archibald Jacob, choral composer, arranger and author of Musical Handwriting (OUP, 1937). Jacob was educated at Dulwich College, and enlisted in the Queen's Royal Regiment (West Surrey) at the outbreak of the First World War. He was taken POW in 1917 after being one of 60 survivors from a battalion of 800. In the prison camp he studied a harmony textbook in the camp library and began composing. He wrote for an orchestra of his fellow prisoners, with assorted instruments. After the war he studied journalism before turning to music. He took a correspondence course, gained an ARCM diploma and was accepted as a full-time student at the Royal College of Music (RCM) in 1920. There, he was a pupil of Charles Villiers Stanford and Ralph Vaughan Williams (composition), Herbert Howells (music theory) and Adrian Boult (conducting), from whom he learned the "economy and decision" of his podium technique. At the end of his student course in 1924, Gordon became a teacher of music, briefly at Birkbeck and Morley Colleges, and then at the RCM, where he remained until his retirement in 1966. He was professor of music theory, composition and orchestration. Among his students at the RCM were Malcolm Arnold, Ruth Gipps, Imogen Holst, Cyril Smith, Philip Cannon, Pamela Harrison, Joseph Horovitz, Bernard Stevens and John Warrack. In addition to his teaching commitments he was a regular examiner for the Associated Board of the Royal Schools of Music, and from 1947 to 1957 he was editor of Penguin Musical Scores. He contributed articles to musical journals and to Grove's Dictionary of Music and Musicians and wrote four books: Orchestral Technique, a Manual for Students (1931); How to Read a Score (1944); The Composer and his Art (1955); and The Elements of Orchestration (1962). In 1959 a BBC television documentary about Jacob was directed by Ken Russell; in the following years, under its controller of music William Glock, the BBC was seen as increasingly hostile to living composers who wrote tonal music. It was always denied that Glock had a blacklist, but music by non avant-garde composers, including Edmund Rubbra, Arnold Bax, John Ireland and even William Walton, was demonstrably out of favour with the BBC during the 1960s. By this decade a large proportion of a composer's income came from royalties for broadcasts, and like others of his generation, Jacob suffered from the BBC's disinclination to play his music. He was fortunate in having a steady stream of commissions from the US, where his music was popular with university wind bands. He never retired from composing, and went on writing until shortly before his death. Jacob was twice married, first in 1924 to Sydney Gray, elder daughter of the Rev Arthur Gray of Ipswich. She died in 1958, and the following year he married Margaret Sidney Hannah Gray, the niece of his first wife. There were a son and daughter of the second marriage. Jacob died at his home in Saffron Walden, Essex, in 1984, aged 88.

Jacob's first major success was written during his student years: the William Byrd Suite for orchestra based on the Fitzwilliam Virginal Book. Boult conducted the first performance in February 1923. The Times called it "a brilliant piece of adaptation", and expressed the hope that it would be heard again. The music critic for The Times commented in 1932 that there was "something magical" about the way in which Jacob's arrangements transformed the original music into scores that might make the listener think that the new version was what the composer really intended. Most of Jacob's ballet scores were arrangements of existing works, such as Les Sylphides (1932, using music by Chopin), Carnival (1932, Schumann), Apparitions (1936, Liszt), and Mam'zelle Angot, (1947, Lecocq). In 1958 Noël Coward composed a one-act work London Morning for the London Festival Ballet, which Jacob orchestrated. In 1968, Jacob re-orchestrated the score of Frederick Ashton's ballet Marguerite and Armand, replacing a previous orchestration by Humphrey Searle of music by Liszt. During the Second World War Jacob was one of several composers who contributed arrangements of popular tunes to the BBC comedy show ITMA. Shortly after the war, on Boult's recommendation, Jacob was commissioned by a music publishing firm to orchestrate Elgar's Organ Sonata (1946). After a single performance in 1947 this version remained unplayed until 1988, when the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by Vernon Handley recorded it for CD. Reviewing the recording, Edward Greenfield commented that dubbing the orchestrated version "Elgar's Symphony No. 0" was amply justified. Jacob's trumpet-heavy fanfare arrangement of the national anthem was used for the coronation of Queen Elizabeth II in 1953, in 2022 for her funeral, and again in 2023 for the coronation of Charles III and Camilla. It was also used in Norway in 2016 for the 25th anniversary of King Harald V's accession in 1991, as the nation's royal anthem shares the same melody as the national anthem of the United Kingdom.

• William Byrd Suite (composed 1922, published 1924) • Concerto for Viola and Orchestra (1925) • Concerto for Piano and Strings (1927) • An Original Suite for Military Band (1928) • String Quartet No. 1 (1928) • Symphony No. 1 (1928–9) • Variations on an Air by Purcell (1930), string orchestra • Passacaglia on a Well-Known Theme (Oranges and Lemons) (1931) • String Quartet No. 2 (1931) • Concerto for Oboe and Strings (1933) • Uncle Remus (1934), ballet • Variations on an Original Theme (1936); • Suite No. 1 in F (1939) • Clarinet Quintet (1940) • Symphony for Strings (1943) • Symphony No. 2 (1945) • Sonatina for clarinet (or viola) and piano (1946) • Concerto for Bassoon, Strings, and Percussion (1947) • Suite No. 2 (1948–9); • Suite No. 3 (1949) • Fantasia on the Alleluia Hymn (1949) • Serenade (1950), woodwind octet • The Nun's Priest's Tale (1951), chorus and orchestra • Music for a Festival (1951), concert band • Concerto for Horn and Strings (1951) • Concerto for Flute and Strings (1952) • Scherzo for Two Trumpets, Horn, and Trombone (1952) • Sextet for piano and winds, "In memoriam Aubrey Brain" • Concerto for Violin and Strings (1954) • Concerto for Cello and Strings (1955) • Prelude and Toccata (1955), orchestra • Concerto for Trombone and Orchestra (1955) • Piano Trio (1956) • Divertimento for harmonica and string quartet (1956) • Oboe Concerto No. 2 (1956) • Piano Concerto No. 2 (1957) • Five Pieces (In the form of a Suite) for Harmonica and Piano (1957) • Old Wine in New Bottles (1958), For wind ensemble: 2 flutes, 2 oboes, 2 clarinets, 2 bassoons, 2 horns, 2 trumpets • Prelude, Meditation and Fanfare (1958), organ • The Pied Piper, 2 unaccompanied pieces for solo flute/piccolo: The Spell (solo flute) and March to the River Weser (solo piccolo) (1958) • Overture Fun Fare (1960) • The Barber of Seville Goes to the Devil (1960), full orchestra (burlesque of Rossini's overture to The Barber of Seville) • Overture for Strings (1964) • Divertimento (1968), 8 winds • Suite for Bassoon and String Quartet (1968) for William Waterhouse • Suite for Four Trombones (1968) • Concerto for Piano Duet (3 hands) and Orchestra (1969) • York Symphony (1970), for brass band • Concerto for Band (1970), concert band • Partita for Bassoon (1970) for William Waterhouse • Introduction and Rondo (1972), clarinet choir • Suite for Tuba and Strings (1972) • Variations on a Dorian Theme (1972) • Five Pieces for Clarinet (Unaccompanied) (1973) • Swansea Town, variations for wind ensemble (1973) • Fantasia for Euphonium and Wind Band (1974) • Double Concerto for Clarinet and Trumpet (1975) • Suite for 8 violas (1975), premiered in 1976, in honor of Lionel Tertis' 100th birthday. • Pro Corda Suite (1977), string quartet and string orchestra • Concertino for Trombone and Wind Orchestra (1977) • Symphony AD 78 (1978), concert band • Fantasia on an English folk song (Dashing away with a smoothing iron) (published c. 1984), concert band • Sonata for Viola and Piano (1978) • Cameos for bass trombone (1978) • Sonata for trombone and piano (1979) • Viola Concerto No. 2 (1979) • Mini-Concerto for Clarinet and String Orchestra (1980), dedicated to and first performed by Thea King. • Fanfare, Pavan and Fughetta for alto, tenor and bass trombones (1980) • Trombone Octet (1981) • Cello Serenade (published 1984) commissioned by Ross Pople, funded by the Eastern Arts Association • Concerto for Timpani and Wind Band (1984) • Denbigh Suite for String Orchestra (or String Quartet) (1929), for Howell's School, Denbigh • Clarinet Concertino (arranged from two violin sonatas of Giuseppe Tartini) • Two Madrigals for Trombone Choir (manuscript)