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Gordon Jacob
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==Music== ===Compositions=== Jacob was a prolific composer. ''Grove'' lists 16 concertos by him for a wide variety of solo instruments, including trombone and timpani. A website dedicated to Jacob lists more than 700 original compositions or arrangements of existing music.<ref>[http://www.gordonjacob.net/browse_works.html "Works"], Gordon Jacob. Retrieved 2 November 2018</ref> His biographer (and former pupil) [[Eric Wetherell]] writes that as a composer, Jacob was influenced more by early 20th-century French and Russian examples rather than the German tradition. Wetherell writes of Jacob's "clarity of structure and instrumental writing that shows a keen awareness of the capabilities and limitations of every instrument".<ref name=grove/> Reviewing a concert of his music given in 1939, ''The Times'' said, "As a general description, 'Good, but a little dry' might be justly applied to Jacob's work".<ref>"Week-end Concerts", ''The Times'', 6 February 1939, p. 8</ref> In the 1920s and 1930s Jacob composed music for choral societies and school choirs, which provided a steady income, in between more ambitious compositions. From his works of the 1920s, Wetherell singles out a viola concerto (1926), a piano concerto followed (1927) and the First Symphony (1929) dedicated to the memory of Jacob's favourite brother who was killed in the First World War. Large-scale works from the 1930s include an oboe concerto for [[Léon Goossens]] (1935) and Variations on an Original Theme (1937) In the 1930s Jacob, along with several other young composers, wrote for the [[Sadler's Wells Ballet Company]] (now [[The Royal Ballet]]). His one original ballet (other than a student work, ''The Jew in the Bush'' (1928)),<ref>"Royal College of Music", ''The Times'', 13 March 1928, p. 14</ref> was ''Uncle Remus'' (1934), written for them. During the [[Second World War]], Jacob wrote music for several propaganda films, and after the war he provided the score for the feature film ''[[Esther Waters (film)|Esther Waters]]'' (1948).<ref>[https://web.archive.org/web/20191010235549/https://www.bfi.org.uk/films-tv-people/4ce2ba07cb851 "Gordon Jacob"], British Film Institute. Retrieved 2 November 2018</ref> A more personal take on the war is evident in the austere ''Symphony for Strings'' (1943), written for the [[Boyd Neel|Boyd Neel Orchestra]].<ref>[http://www.musicweb-international.com/classrev/2021/Jan/British-strings-v1-5553822.htm 'British Music for Strings, Volume 1', CPO 555 382-2 (2020), reviewed by ''MusicWeb International'']</ref> Jacob's Second Symphony, premiered on 1 May 1946 at a BBC studio recording,<ref>[https://www.chandos.net/chanimages/Booklets/LY0315.pdf Wetherell, Eric. Notes to Lyrita CD LYO315 (2007)]</ref> was considered by one reviewer to be "perhaps the most stimulating work that has yet come from this composer". The reviewer remarked on the work's intensity of feeling, ranging from romantic excitement in the first movement, through poignancy and fury in the two middle movements to a mood of heroism in the final [[passacaglia]].<ref>Dr Gordon Jacob: Second Symphony", ''The Times'', 1 July 1948, p. 6</ref> Four new works appeared in 1951, the year of the [[Festival of Britain]]: ''Music for a Festival'' (for brass and military bands), concertos for flute and for horn, and the cantata ''A Goodly Heritage''.<ref name=web>Ogram, Geoff. [http://www.musicweb-international.com/classrev/2004/feb04/gordon_jacob.htm "Gordon Jacob (1895–1984)]", Music Web. Retrieved 2 November 2018</ref> Among the original compositions from Jacob's later years was incidental music to a dramatised adaptation of the biblical [[Book of Job]], first performed at the Festival of the Arts, Saffron Walden, and later broadcast by the BBC.<ref>[https://genome.ch.bbc.co.uk/search/0/20?adv=0&q=Gordon+Jacob&media=all&yf=1923&yt=2009&mf=1&mt=12&tf=00%3A00&tt=00%3A00#search "Gordon Jacob"], BBC Genome. Retrieved 2 November 2018</ref> ===Arrangements=== 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.<ref>"Week-end Concerts", ''The Times'', 19 February 1923, p. 7</ref> 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.<ref>"Arranging for Orchestra", ''The Times'', 30 January 1932, p. 8</ref> Most of Jacob's ballet scores were arrangements of existing works, such as ''[[Les Sylphides]]'' (1932, using music by [[Frédéric Chopin|Chopin]]), ''Carnival'' (1932, [[Robert Schumann|Schumann]]), ''Apparitions'' (1936, [[Franz Liszt|Liszt]]), and ''[[Mam'zelle Angot]]'', (1947, [[Charles Lecocq|Lecocq]]). In 1958 [[Noël Coward]] composed a one-act work ''London Morning'' for the [[English National Ballet|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.<ref>[http://www.rohcollections.org.uk/work.aspx?work=395&row=14&letter=M& "Marguerite and Armand"], Royal Opera House performance database. Retrieved 2 November 2018</ref> 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 [[Organ Sonata (Elgar)|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.<ref>Greenfield, Edward. "Elgar's lost symphony", ''The Guardian'', 12 October 1989, p. 31</ref> Jacob's trumpet-heavy fanfare arrangement of the [[God Save the Queen|national anthem]] was used for the [[coronation of Queen Elizabeth II]] in 1953, in 2022 for [[Death and state funeral of Elizabeth II|her funeral]], and again in 2023 for the [[coronation of Charles III and Camilla]].<ref>{{Cite web |date=18 September 2022 |title=Order of Service for the State Funeral of Her Majesty The Queen |url=https://www.royal.uk/order-service-state-funeral-her-majesty-queen |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230827231826/https://www.royal.uk/order-service-state-funeral-her-majesty-queen |archive-date=27 August 2023 |access-date=27 August 2023 |website=royal.uk}}</ref><ref name=web/><ref>{{cite news |title=Coronation order of service in full |work=BBC News |date=5 May 2023 |url=https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-65503950 |access-date=6 May 2023}}</ref> It was also used in Norway in 2016 for the 25th anniversary of King [[Harald V]]'s accession in 1991 due to the fact that [[Kongesangen|the nation's royal anthem]] shares the same melody as the [[God Save the King|national anthem]] of the United Kingdom.<ref>{{Cite AV media |url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=shared&v=Q8onzXA9ruo |title=Kongesangen - Norway Royal Anthem at Nidarosdomen - Gud, Sign Vår Konge God |date=2021-05-13 |last=Ola Nordmann |access-date=2024-10-22 |via=YouTube}}</ref> ===Recordings=== The discography at the Gordon Jacob website lists more than eighty recordings of his works, some of them arrangements of other composers' music, such as the Elgar Organ Sonata and Vaughan Williams's ''English Folk Song Suite'', but mostly original works by Jacob. They include: orchestral pieces such as the First and Second Symphonies, the Little Symphony and ''The Barber of Seville Goes to the Devil''; the two Viola Concertos as well as concertante works for bassoon, clarinet, flute, horn, piano (two concertos), oboe, trombone and trumpet; and chamber works for many different combinations of instruments.<ref>[http://www.gordonjacob.net/recordings.html "Recordings"], Gordon Jacob. Retrieved 2 November 2018</ref>
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