Jacobi was one of the founders of the U.S. League of Composers in 1923 and
served on the American board of the International Society for Contemporary
Music in the 1920s and 1930s. His compositions were played by leading
orchestras across the country, from A California Suite (San Francisco Symphony
Orchestra, 1917) to his Serenade for Piano and Orchestra (Indianapolis
Symphony Orchestra, 1952). The Austrian section of the ISCM gave a special
performance of Jacobi’s works at the ISCM Congress in Vienna in 1932.
"Frederick Jacobi and Herman Voaden: The Prodigal Son" is a study of
the collaboration during 1942-44 between Jacobi and the Canadian playwright on
the opera The Prodigal Son. Jacobi had been inspired to compose the opera by
four early 19th-century American lithographs that visualized the Biblical
story in an American setting and asked Voaden to write the libretto. This
study presents an inside account of the writing and composing of the opera,
the history of concert and stage presentations in the U.S., London and Toronto
over the subsequent decade, and how it might be staged today.
The website (http://www.lib.unb.ca/Texts/Theatre/voaden/index.htm)
discusses the rise of a distinct indigenous American music
in the early 1920s, the critical climate of the period, the question of
nationalism in music, and how Jacobi expressed his Jewish heritage in his
compositions. The site also features a complete chronology and discography of
Jacobi’s 100 works, 50 photographs and the complete text of Voaden’s opera
libretto for The Prodigal Son.
Biography
[I am still looking for biographical information about Frederick Jacobi, that I can publish here. If you think you can help, then let me know.]
yorku.ca>)
