Paul Jacobs (pianist)

Reviewing that concert, Ross Parmenter described him in The New York Times as 'a young man of individual tastes with an experimental approach to the keyboard that he already has mastered.

There he began his long association with Pierre Boulez, playing frequently in his Domaine musical concerts, which introduced many of the key works of the early twentieth-century to post-war Paris.

'[6] During his time in Europe he appeared as soloist with the Orchestre National de Paris and the Cologne Orchestra and made many radio broadcasts.

[2] For the 1957 course, Wolfgang Steinecke invited him to give the European première of Stockhausen's Klavierstück XI, a key work in the development of 'controlled chance'[7] and this may have been at the composer's suggestion.

[10] He made his recital debut as a harpsichordist at Carnegie Hall in February 1966 with a programme which included Bach, Haydn, and de Falla's Harpsichord Concerto.

He is the pianist in the NYPO recording of Gershwin's Rhapsody in Blue (conducted by Mehta) used by Woody Allen in the opening of his film Manhattan.

[15] He had a long collaboration with the American composer Elliott Carter, recording most of Carter's solo piano music and ensemble works with keyboard, including the Double Concerto for Harpsichord and Piano, With Two Chamber Orchestras, the Cello Sonata and the Sonata for Flute, Oboe, Cello and Harpsichord.

[16] It was Jacobs who organised the consortium after he and Oppens realised that Carter's previous reluctance to accept a commission for a new solo piano work from one pianist might have been born out of a desire not to offend others.

[18] He also gave first performances of music by George Crumb,[19] Berio, Henze, Messiaen and Sessions[1] and commissioned Frederic Rzewski's Four North American Ballads in 1979.

[27] Although Jacobs was associated with some of the most challenging music of the modernist tradition, his colleague Gilbert Kalish stressed that 'far from being an "intellectual performer", Paul was the most intuitive and spontaneous kind of musician.

'[9] Perhaps the composer with whom he is now most closely associated is Debussy, most of whose major piano works he recorded, including the Préludes, Etudes, Images and Estampes.

Writing of a reissue of one of these recordings in 2002, the Gramophone commented: 'Hearing Paul Jacobs ... is a sharp and salutary reminder of a novel‚ vigorous and superbly uncluttered view of Debussy ... one which stresses the composer's revolutionary fervour.

The power and focus of these performances remain astonishing with opalescent mists and hazes burnt away to reveal a corruscating wit and vitality.

[31] His reputation as a recording artist rests largely on a series of LPs he made for the American Nonesuch label, for most of which he wrote a wide-ranging accompanying essay.

In 2008 Arbiter released a two-CD set of the Stravinsky two piano / four-hand repertoire (with Ursula Oppens), coupled with some previously unpublished live recordings by Jacobs.