Gordon Jacob

Quartet for Oboe and Strings

While Gordon Jacob composed a vast amount of music more than four hundred pieces -- he was particularly celebrated for his work for woodwinds, as well as for his books on music pedagogy.

Quartet for Oboe and Strings in four movements demonstrates his particular mastery of composition for winds with an opening line of evocative lyricism for the Oboe, making fine use of its plaintive tone. Gordon Jacob's Concerto for Oboe and Strings shows the great strengths and musical gifts of this most prolific British composer.

While many composers of the 20th century rejected serialism, atonality and other avant garde effects in favour of Romanticism, Jacob was much more an adherent to the musical models of the classical and Baroque eras. His work Music for a Festival was used for the post-war Festival of Britain and he arranged the British national anthem for the coronation of Queen Elizabeth II.