Gordon Jacob

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Gordon Jacob
Gordon Jacob


Biography

Gordon Jacob (born 5 July 1895 in London; died 8 June 1984 in Saffron Walden) was an English composer and pedagogue. The youngest of ten siblings, he enlisted in the Field Artillery to serve in World War I when he was 19, and was taken POW in 1917, one of only 60 men in his battalion of 800 to survive.

After being released he spent a year studying journalism, but left to study composition, theory, and conducting at the Royal College of Music, where he then taught from 1924 until his 1966 retirement, counting Malcolm Arnold, Ruth Gipps, Cyril Smith and Imogen Holst among his students. Sadly, because of his cleft palate and a childhood hand injury, his instrumental abilities were limited; he studied piano but never had a performing career.

Jacob's first major successful piece was composed during his student years: the William Byrd Suite for orchestra, after a collection of pieces for the virginal. It is better-known in a later arrangement for the symphonic band. While a student Jacob was asked by Vaughan Williams to arrange the latter's English Folk Song Suite in full orchestral form. Jacob became a Fellow of the Royal College in 1946, and throughout his career would often write pieces for particular students and faculties.

After his retirement from the Royal College in 1966, he continued to support himself by composing, often on commission. He describes many of the works as "unpretentious little pieces", though some of his most works were published during this time, including his 1984 Concerto for Timpani and Wind Band.


Works for Winds


References



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