Julian Jacobson

Maurice Jacobson OBE (1 January 1896 – 2 February 1976) was an English pianist, composer, music publisher and music festival judge. He was also director and later chairman of the music publishing firm J. Curwen & Sons. Jacobson was born in London on 1 January 1896 into a Jewish family. He won a scholarship to study piano at London's Modern School of Music (which led to him receiving lessons from Ferruccio Busoni), then composition at the Royal College of Music under Sir Charles Villiers Stanford and Gustav Holst until 1923. That year Jacobson adapted Vaughan Williams' Mass in G minor (in English) for liturgical use. He married Constance Suzannah Wasserzug (1903-1988) and there were two sons, Michael and Julian. The couple were friendly with the poet Stevie Smith, whom they met in Aylesbury while Maurice was conducting the Aylesbury Choral Society. But the friendship ended abruptly when Smith modeled her characters Rosa and Herman on the Jacobsons in her book Novel on Yellow Paper (1936), which they instantly recognised as versions of themselves and thought unkind portrayals. In the 1960s his address was White Lodge, Long Lane, Heronsgate in Hertfordshire. Jacobson appeared as a castaway on the BBC Radio programme Desert Island Discs on 20 January 1969, and was appointed an Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) in 1971. He died in Brighton, England, on 2 February 1976, and was buried at Golders Green Jewish Cemetery in London. His son is the pianist Julian Jacobson (born 1947), who studied with Lamar Crowson, John Barstow and Louis Kentner.