Frederick Jacobi
Frederick Jacobi was a Jewish-American composer and teacher. His works include symphonies, concerti, chamber music, works for solo piano and for solo organ, lieder, and one opera.
He taught at Juilliard School of Music from 1936 to 1950, where his pupils included Alexei Haieff, Robert Starer, and Robert Ward. Other notable students included Mark Bucci and John Verrall. He also served as the director of the American section of the International Society for Contemporary Music and was a founding member of the League of Composers. He died on October 24, 1952 in New York City of heart failure.
Biography
Early life
Frederick Jacobi was the son of San Francisco wholesale wine merchant, Frederick Jacobi Sr. and Flora Brandenstein, whom Frederick Sr. had married in 1876. During the composer's childhood years, he demonstrated his musical talent, composing short pieces at the piano and playing tunes from contemporary musical comedies by ear. In these years the family traveled each summer to visit relatives in New York City. The scenery of those cross-country train rides later provided the themes of a number of Jacobi's nature-inspired compositions.Musical training and career
When Frederick Sr. died in 1911, Frederick Jr. inherited the estate, which provided him enough wealth that he could devote his entire livelihood to music. In his twenties Jacobi studied music and composition under such masters as Isidore Philippe of the Paris Conservatory, Rafael Joseffy, Paolo Gallico, Ernest Bloch and Rubin Goldmark in New York, and Paul Juon in Berlin.From 1913 to 1917 he worked as a vocal coach and assistant conductor at the Metropolitan Opera. It was during that time, on April 19, 1917, that he married Irene Schwarcz, a friend of many years, who, at the time, was studying piano at the New York Institute of Musical Art. Irene would go on to become an accomplished concert pianist and would play piano parts in many performances and recordings of Jacobi's works.
Jacobi enlisted in the army shortly after marrying Irene, where he served as a saxophone player in the Alcatraz Army Band. He was discharged in 1919, at which time he moved to New York to be in closer contact with the American composers of the time. His first large orchestral work, The Eve of St. Agnes, debuted the following year in New York. For the remainder of his life he published and performed new works nearly every year—sometimes several in the same year. Major American orchestras such as the New York Philharmonic, the Philadelphia Orchestra, and the Boston, Chicago, and San Francisco symphonies performed Jacobi's orchestral compositions during the years of his life.
In works from what has become known as Jacobi's Indian period, he incorporated rhythms and other elements from indigenous Native American music he had heard in his travels through the American southwest. Indeed, he spent the winter of 1927 with the Navajo and Pueblo of New Mexico studying their music. In 1942-1944 Jacobi collaborated with Canadian playwright and librettist, Herman Voaden, to produce the opera, The Prodigal Son, which debuted at the American Opera Society of Chicago in May 1945.
Legacy
Jacobi is also known and best remembered as a composer of works with Judaic themes. His interest in this genre began with a 1930 commission from Congregation Emanu-El of the City of New York for a sabbath evening service. Although he had not been religiously educated as a child, this experience affected him permanently, and thereafter the Bible influenced all of his music, secular and liturgical. He even taught himself Hebrew. Although Jacobi's secular work is performed only infrequently today, his liturgical works continue to receive performances in synagogues.Jacobi's work largely rejects the polytonality and atonality that was popular with the avant-garde composers of his time. Instead he finds his influence in the classical and romantic periods. Baltimore Sun critic, Florestan Croche, described Jacobi's style as having "a sense of the drama which is always aristocratic, introspective, and personal, and never allowed to become theatrical. Harmonically... his is a language of extreme chromaticism, one, however, which always appears to be tonally oriented." New York Times critic, Olin Downes, described the aesthetics of Jacobi's music as "not so much of the 20th as of the 19th century."
Awards and honors
- Honorable mention in the Elizabeth Sprague Coolidge Competition, 1924
- Two-time winner of the award of the Society for the Publication of American Music
- David Bispham Medal awarded by The American Opera Society for The Prodigal Son.
Quotes on musical composition and anecdotes
- "I am a great believer in melody; a believer, too, that music should give pleasure and not try to solve philosophical problems."
- "The surest way to kill whatever originality one possesses within himself is to try to be original!"
- Irene was in a box near the Metropolitan Opera stage one evening when Frederick Jacobi was the prompter. After the performance she said, "Darling, you were wonderful. I heard every word you said!"
Discography
- RCA Victor Red Seal, M 782, 1-5
- SPA Records 7 Saratoga Springs, NY
- CRI 146
- CRI 174
- CRI 703
- NAXOS AMERICAN CLASSICS: Milken Archive of American Jewish Music
Compositions
- 1915 The Pied Piper, Symphonic Poem
- 1916 Three Songs to Poems by Sarojini Naidu
- 1917 A California Suite
- 1918 Nocturne, for string quartet
- 1918 Psalmody
- 1920 Three Songs, for high voice with piano
- 1920 The Eve of Saint Agnes
- 1921 Three Preludes for Violin and Piano
- 1921 Morning and Evening at Blue Hill
- 1921 A Festival Prelude
- 1922 Symphony No. 1
- 1922 Three Songs to Poems by Chaucer “Roundel” and “Ballade” published as Two Poems by Geoffrey Chaucer
- 1923 Two Assyrian Prayers
- 1923 Two Assyrian Prayers
- 1924 Three Preludes for Violin, with orchestral accompaniment
- 1924 String Quartet on Indian Themes
- 1925 The Poet in the Desert
- 1926 Nocturne
- 1926 Marsyas
- 1927-28 Indian Dances/Danses Indiennes/Indianische Tänze
- 1930-31 Sabbath Evening Service According to the Union Prayer Book
- 1932 Concerto for Cello and Orchestra Reduction for Piano and Cello,
- 1933 String Quartet No. 2
- 1933 Six Pieces for the Organ for Use in the Synagogue. One piece published as Prelude.
- 1933 Three Preludes for Organ.
- 1934-35 Concerto for Piano and Orchestra
- 1934 Piano Pieces for Children A Lovely Little Movie Actress and Once Upon a Time published separately.
- 1936 Scherzo for Flute, Oboe, Clarinet, Bassoon and Horn
- 1936-37 Concerto for Violin and Orchestra
- 1937 Cadenza to Mozart’s Rondo for Piano and Orchestra
- 1937 Swing Boy
- 1938 Hagiographa: Three Biblical Narratives for String Quartet and Piano
- 1938 Preludes on Traditional Melodies
- 1939 Ave Rota: Three Pieces in Multiple Style for Small Orchestra and Piano.
- 1939 Dunam Po Palestinian folk song arrangement published in Hans Nathan, ed. Folk Songs of the New Palestine.
- 194? Variations on a Theme by Moussorgsky
- 1940 Shemesh Cello and Piano
- 1940 Rhapsody for Harp and String Orchestra
- 1941 Fantasy for Viola and Piano
- 1941 Ode for Orchestra
- 1941 Cadenza for Mozart’s Concerto for Piano and Orchestra in C Minor
- 1941 Night Piece for Flute and Small Orchestra
- 1941 Night Piece and Dance, for flute and piano.
- 1942 Ballade for Violin and Piano
- 1942 Hymn for Men’s Chorus
- 1942 From the Prophet Nehemiah: Three Excerpts for Voice and Two Pianos
- 1942-44 The Prodigal Son: Opera in Three Acts based on Four Early American Prints. Text by Herman Voaden..
- 1943 Penelope
- 1944 Dances From The Prodigal Son Arranged for Two Pianos, Four Hands
- 1944 Night Piece for Flute, Oboe, Clarinet, String Quintet and Piano
- 1944 Music for Monticello
- 1945 String Quartet No. 3
- 1945 Ahavas Olom
- 1945 Kaddish
- 1945 Toccata
- 1945 Toccata for piano solo. From Prelude and Toccata.
- 1945 Prelude in E Minor, for piano From Prelude and Toccata.
- 1945 Impressions from the Odyssey
- 1945 Fantasy Sonata for Piano
- 1945 Four Dances From The Prodigal Son
- 1946 Concertino for Piano and String Orchestra
- 1946 Kaddish
- 1946 Two Pieces in Sabbath Mood
- 1946 Moods
- 1946 Introduction and Toccata, for piano solo
- 1946 Prelude in E Minor for piano solo
- 1946 Contemplation
- 1946 Toccata
- 1947 Symphony in C
- 1947 Meditation for Trombone and Piano
- 1947 Suite Fantasque
- 1948 Three Songs to Words by Philip Freneau.
- 1948 Ode to Zion for mixed voices and two harps
- 1948 Two Dances From The Prodigal Son
- 1948 Music Hall: Overture for Orchestra
- 1949 Yeibichai : Variations for Orchestra on an American Indian Theme
- 1949? Tuari: Nocturne for String Orchestra
- 1949 Music Hall Suite
- 1949 Fanfare, in Memory of James Whitcomb Riley: Born 1849
- 1949 Ashrey Haish
- 1950 Three Quiet Preludes
- 1950 Ballade Concertante for two pianos
- 1950 Ballade Concertante for piano and orchestra
- 1950-51 Sonata for Cello and Piano
- 1951 Two Pieces for Flute and Orchestra: Night Piece and Dance
- 1951 Night Piece and Dancefor Flute and Piano
- 1951-52 Arvit L’Shabbat for organ, baritone solo/cantor, mixed voices
- 1952 O May the Words for organ and mixed voices
- 1952 Serenade
- 1952 Serenade for Piano and Orchestra