“Bernard Jacobson, a classical music critic and writer for more than six decades, died on Feb. 14, 2022, in Philadelphia. He was 85,” writes Sarah Shay in Wednesday’s (4/13) Musical America (subscription required). “Born in London … he began his career in the Netherlands, where wrote liner notes for Philips before [becoming] artistic director of … The Hague Philharmonic and then as artistic advisor to the North Netherlands Orchestra. [In] London, he worked for EMI and Boosey and Hawkes…. [In Chicago,] he was music critic for the Chicago Daily News and taught music at Roosevelt University. In 1984 he and his wife relocated to Philadelphia, where the Philadelphia Orchestra hired him as program annotator and musicologist…. Jacobson remained a fixture on the Philadelphia music scene for the rest of his life, writing program notes for the Philadelphia Chamber Music Society and the Chamber Orchestra of Philadelphia. As a performer, Jacobson” narrated works by Stravinsky with the Philadelphia Orchestra and the San Jose Symphony, and narrated Martinů’s The Epic of Gilgamesh at Chicago’s Grant Park Music Festival. “Jacobson contributed articles to High Fidelity, Musical America, Fanfare, and Seen and Heard International, and authored The Music of Johannes Brahms, Conductors on Conducting, A Polish Renaissance, and Star Turns and Cameo Appearances: Memoirs of a Life among Musicians.”
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