Hyperion Records

Salomon Jadassohn (1831–1902) was one of the more interesting also-rans of Romantic music—ultimately remembered as the teacher of an amazing array of celebrated pupils—including Edvard Grieg, Frederick Delius and Ferruccio Busoni. ‘Solid craftsmanship’ seems indeed to have been the phrase most contemporary critics reached for when trying to give their impression of Salomon Jadassohn’s music, a phrase that no doubt flowed more easily from their pen owing to his reputation as one of the Leipzig Conservatory’s longest-serving composition teachers. Even surviving photographs of Jadassohn promote this image of the strict pedagogue, eyes staring out unwaveringly, sandwiched between a follicly challenged forehead and a correspondingly over-luxuriant beard. Jadassohn had himself enrolled as a student of the Conservatory in 1848, but eyebrows were raised at that august institution when it was discovered that he was occasionally slipping away to take lessons from the arch-enemy Liszt in Weimar.

from notes by Kenneth Hamilton © 2009