Paul Jacobs – Press

“As someone once said, play loud or not at all.”

Armed with the 3,568 pipes of the concert organ at Nashville’s Laura Turner Concert Hall, the excellent Paul Jacobs gives a delightful performance, vigorously supported by Giancarlo Guerrero’s brightly polished Nashville Symphony, stripped of woodwinds in Parker’s scoring something that only makes the organ’s tones stand out with extra clarity.

“We should feel grateful to Paul Jacobs for his edifying and thoughtful words about the pieces, the organ, and the need to encourage young people to pursue careers in music, but most of all for this great performance which one hopes raised a princely sum [for the Fall Scholarship Fund Concert].”

“Paul Jacobs, the day’s reigning organ virtuoso, has assayed a fascinating assortment of Americana that showcases the King of Instruments against an orchestra.”

“The organ is perfectly set as the core internal fabric of the orchestra”

“In his magisterial performance, Jacobs hammed up the movements’ vivid personalities”

“These are Romantic outpourings, their structures grand, if improvisatory in feel. Yet Jacobs kept them from turning turgid — his tempos flowing while conveying the weight and depth of the music. . . [with his] almost meterless delicacy.”

“Step aside, Hugh Jackman. If anyone deserves to be called the greatest showman, it’s organ virtuoso Paul Jacobs, who returned to the Philadelphia Orchestra this past weekend for the local premiere of a witty, memorable work written specifically for him.”

“The Curtis-trained organist, though, deployed a gorgeous spread of instrumental colors.”

“Time to say something about Jacobs’s playing? It was superb…Jacobs has an acute sense of rhythm—crucial in a musician, and maybe especially in an organist. He knows how to deal with dynamics, colors—everything.”

“Jacobs was in complete control of his daunting organ part…The audience seemed raptly engaged by the new work, awarding Jacobs and the composer an enthusiastic ovation.”

“Paul Jacobs, who in recent years has become a frequent soloist with The Cleveland Orchestra, was a brilliant exponent of the difficult solo part.”

“Consider this experiment a success. In collaboration with the orchestra, organist Paul Jacobs gave a colorful, bewitching performance that surely did justice to the score and exemplified each of the Classical Elements Deutsch sought to depict.”

“Through it all, organist Paul Jacobs was a dynamo, giving this staggeringly difficult score an authority matched by Welser-Möst and the orchestra.”

“In other places, and over long stretches, he imbues the piece with a shy ease and tames the mighty force of his instrument.  He favors adding color to the work rather than overpowering the audience with volume.”

“…the soloist Paul Jacobs plays the organ in the great hall of the Elbphilharmonie in a way that is as fine as anything else.”

“Jacobs threw out just about every stop on the organ console with his turbocharged reading…”

“…Amazingly, Jacobs didn’t stop there. Shortly after applause began, the artist hushed his already won-over crowd anew with the fugue from Bach’s Prelude and Fugue in D Major, BWV 532. The word for that? Marvelous.”

“Jacobs thoughtfully colored and shaped the music’s numerous descriptive effects with expressive precision that brought out the music’s natural wit, but more important, its purpose… …If this was musical stand-up comedy, then Jacobs beautifully articulated and shaped the jokes but didn’t punch them so hard that they lost their inner humanity. Or animal impulsiveness.”

“Soloist Paul Jacobs had the piece thoroughly in hand (and feet), and rewarded us with a bustling Bach encore.”

“… An obliterating performance by one of the major musicians of our time.”

Paul Jacobs, who is as much an organ evangelist as a world-renowned performer, is dedicated to boosting the visibility of organ-centered compositions and having pipe organs heard more frequently on orchestral programs.

“It provides a really stunning example of a contemporary collaboration between the organ and orchestra, and new sound worlds for the listener,”

Paul Jacobs writes a beautiful piece on the significance of the acoustic organ.

How Paul Jacobs brought the organ from the church into concert halls.