Born in Saffron Waldon, Essex, Gordon Jacob was one of the most musically conservative of his generation of composers. Though he studied with Vaughan Williams and Stanford at the Royal College, Jacob preferred the more austere Baroque and Classical models to the Romanticism of his peers. He was a skilful writer for winds, and a good deal of his regard today is for his embracing of the wind band. Jacob was highly prolific and published over 700 pieces of music before his death in 1984, in addition to his four books and numerous essays on music.