October 23, 2025
Athens, GR 14 C
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Lament for top lute

Lament for top lute

Message received:

 

The Dutch lutenist and theorbo player Fred Jacobs died last Thursday. As fine a player of those instruments as there could be, whether as a soloist or as a continuo player, he worked with almost every leading European period instrument orchestra and played in the orchestra pit for dozens of baroque operas across the world. For thirty years he was also professor of lute at the Conservatorium van Amsterdam. When it was called for, his forward momentum could drive and inspire a whole continuo section, and yet a second later he would do something utterly entrancing and beautifully musical. Fred was also a delightful colleague, deeply civilised and impeccably mannered, brim full of enthusiasm, amazingly knowledgeable about so many things: a total joy to be with, on and off stage.

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