20th century
Baroque
Classical
Romantic
20th century
21st century
Solo repertoire
Piccolo
Alto flute
Bass flute
Jacob Gordon
Aitken, Robert
Amirov, Fikret
Amlin, Martin
Amram, David
Andriessen, Jurriaan
Arnold, Malcolm
Arrieu, Claude
Auric, Georges
Babbit, Milton
Bacchus, Peter
Bacri, Nicolas
Baker, Michael Conway
Baksa, Robert
Barber, Samuel
Barrere, Georges
Bartók, Béla Viktor János
Baton, René-Emmanuel
Beaser, Robert
Bennet, Richard Rodney
Berg, Gunnar
Berio, Luciano
Bernofsky, Lauren
Bernstein, Leonard
Bloch, Ernest
Bolling, Claude
Bon, Maarten
Bonis, Mel
Boughton, Rutland
Boulanger, Marie-Juliette
Boulez, Pierre
Bourdin, Roger
Bournonville, Armand
Bowen, Edwin York
Bozza, Eugène Joseph
Bréville, Pierre
Brings, Allen
Brotons, Salvador
Brown, Elizabeth
Brun, Georges
Burkhard, Willy
Burton, Eldin
Büsser, Henri
Camus, Pierre
Carmichael, John
Carter, Elliott
Casella, Alfredo
Chaynes, Charles
Clarke, Ian
Colgrass, Michael
Colquhoun, Michael
Copland, Aaron
Corigliano, John
Cortese, Luigi
Currier, Sebastian
Dahl, Walter Ingolf Marcus
Damase, Jean-Michel
Davidovsky, Mario
De Lorenzo, Leonardo
Debussy, Claude
Del Tredici, David
DeLaney, Charles Oliver
Delerue, Georges
Denisov, Edison
Dèsbriere, Jacques
Dick, Robert
Dinicu, Grigoraș
Dodgson, Stephen
Dohnányi, Ernő
Dubois, Pierre Max
Dukas, Paul
Durey, Louis
Dutilleux, Henri
Enescu, George
Farkas, Ferenc
Feld, Jindřich
Ferroud, Pierre-Octave
Flothuis, Marius
Folio, Cynthia
Foote, Arthur
Foss, Lukas
Françaix, Jean
Fukushima, Kazuo
Gade, Jacob
Gál, Hans
Gaubert, Philippe
Genzmer, Harald
George, Thom Ritter
Ghidoni, Armando
Gieseking, Walter
Glass, Philip
Glière, Reinhold
Golovin, Andrei
Gordeli, Otar
Grier, Lita
Griffes, Charles Tomlinson
Grinblat, Romuald
Grovlez, Gabriel
Guarnieri, Mozart Camargo
Gubajdulina, Sofia
Hahn, Reynaldo
Hailstork, Adolphus
Halphen, Fernand
Hanson, Howard Harold
Harberg, Amanda
Harbison, John
Harsányi, Tibor
Harty, Hamilton
Heiss, John
Heith, David
Henze, Hans-Werner
Higdon, Jennifer
Hindemith, Paul
Holliger, Heinz
Holmboe, Vagn
Honegger, Arthur
Hoover, Katherine
Hosokawa, Toshio
Hovhaness, Alan
Hüe, Georges Adolphe
Hurel, Philippe
Ibert, Jacques
Ichiyanagi, Toshi
Ittzés, Gergely
Ives, Charles
Jacob, Gordon
James, Bob
Jemnitz, Sándor
Jirák, Karel Boleslav
Jóhannsson, Magnús Blöndal
Jolivet, André
Jongen, Joseph
Karg-Elert, Sigfrid
Kay, Ulysses
Kelterborn, Rudolf
Ķeniņš, Tālivaldis
Kennan, Kent Wheeler
Kennedy, Martin
Kernis, Aaron Jay
Khachaturian, Aram
Kocsár, Miklós
Kodaly, Zoltan
Koechlin, Charles
Kornauth, Egon
Kraft, Leo
Krzywicki, Jan
Kupferman, Meyer
La Montaine, John
Lauber, Joseph
Lavista, Mario
Lee, Eugene
Leeuwen, Ary van
Levinson, Gerald
Liebermann, Lowell
Loudova, Ivana
Mack, Dieter
Mahler, Gustav
Maresz, Yan
Martin, Frank
Martino, Donald
Martinů, Bohuslav
Meltzer, Harold
Messiaen, Olivier
Mihalovici, Marcel
Milhaud, Darius
Mouquet, Jules
Mower, Mike
Muczynski, Robert
Nielsen, Carl
Norby, Erik
Nordenstrom, Gladys
Offermans, Wil
Olsen, Carl Gustav Sparre
Paget, Daniel
Perle, George
Petrovics, Emil
Piazzolla, Astor
Piston, Walter
Poulenc, Francis
Prokofiev, Sergey
Rachmaninoff, Sergei
Ran, Shulamit
Raphael, Günter
Rautavaara, Einojuhani
Ravel, Maurice
Reynolds, Verne
Riegger, Wallingford
Rivier, Jean
Rodrigo, Joaquin
Rota, Nino
Rotaru, Doina
Rouse, Christopher
Roussel, Albert
Rutter, John
Saariaho, Kaija
Sancan, Pierre
Schmidt, Ole
Schocker, Gary
Schulhoff, Erwin
Schwantner, Joseph
Sciarrino, Salvatore
Shostakovich, Dmitri
Sibelius, Jean
Smit, Leo
Tailleferre, Germaine
Takemitsu, Tōru
Taktakishvili, Otar
Tansman, Alexandre
Tomasi, Henri
Tower, Joan
Uébayashi, Yuko
Varèse, Edgar
Vasks, Pēteris
Weigl, Vally
Weinberg, Mieczysław
Wilder, Alec
Williams, Ralph Vaughan
Yi, Chen
Yun, Isang
Zgraja, Krystof
Pied Piper for flute solo
Pied Piper for flute solo
Gordon Jacob: Pied Piper for flute solo was written in 1958 and dedicated to the British flautist John Francis, who premiered it in 1959 in London. The work is inspired by the Robert Browning poem The Pied Piper of Hamelin.
1958 was a period when Jacob frequently turned to programmatic or "character" titles to provide structural grounding for his solo instrumental works.
The composition consists of two movements:
1. "The Spell" (flute)
A lyrical, hypnotic movement using "winding" chromatic lines to represent the Piper’s seductive music.
2. The March to the River Weser (Piccolo)
A brisk, military-style movement utilizing the piccolo's brilliance to depict the frantic movement of the rats.
Jacob utilizes the "sweet" spots of both instruments: the flute's rich middle register and the piccolo's agile upper register, to create a narrative without an accompaniment.
In 1958, Gordon Jacob was at the height of his reputation as Britain’s premier authority on orchestration and wind writing. Having taught at the Royal College of Music (RCM) for over 30 years, he spent 1958 producing a series of "unaccompanied" works designed to test the technical and characterful limits of various woodwinds.
While the 1950s saw the rise of the "Manchester School" (Maxwell Davies, Birtwistle) and serialism in the UK, Jacob remained a resolute traditionalist. 1958 was a year of "functional elegance" for him. He believed music should be "grateful to play" and communicative to the listener, a philosophy he defended in his pedagogical writings.
Jacob Gordon
Gordon Jacob (1895 - 1984) was a British composer, conductor, and pedagogue, widely regarded as one of the 20th century's greatest authorities on orchestration and band scoring.
Born in Upper Norwood, London, Jacob was the youngest of ten children. His early musical interest was encouraged at Dulwich College, where he began composing.
His education was interrupted by World War I. Serving in the Artillery and later the Infantry, he was captured by the Germans in 1917. Remarkably, while in a POW camp, he organized a small orchestra and began arranging and composing for the available instruments, an experience that honed his practical knowledge of instrumental balance.
After the war, he entered the Royal College of Music, studying under the giants of the British musical renaissance: Charles Villiers Stanford, Herbert Howells, and Ralph Vaughan Williams.
In 1924, he returned to the Royal College of Music as a professor and held that position for over 40 years. His pupils included major figures like Malcolm Arnold and Imogen Holst.
Overall, he has written over 700 compositions, many orchestrations and arrangements. His musical style was influenced by French and Russian music of the early 20th century, and his wide range of compositions fluctuated from symphonies to music for band and film scores. Jacob was especially fond of wind instruments, writing concertos not only for flute, but for less popular instruments like trombone, bassoon, or English horn as well.
He was a staunch traditionalist and a leader of the "English Neoclassical" movement. He rejected the 12-tone system, famously stating that he preferred to write music that was "grateful to the performer and intelligible to the listener."