solo piano work Night Fantasies (1978–80), the others being Charles Rosen, Gilbert Kalish and Ursula Oppens (with whom Jacobs often performed two-piano works). It was Jacobs who organised the consortium after he and Oppens realised that Carter's previous reluctance to accept a commission for a new solo piano work from one pianist might have been born out of a desire not to offend others. He gave the New York premiere of the work in November 1981. All of Jacobs's Carter recordings were re-issued by Nonesuch in 2009 as part of a Carter retrospective set. He also gave first performances of music by George Crumb, Berio, Henze, Messiaen and Sessions and commissioned Frederic Rzewski's Four North American Ballads in 1979. Aaron Copland called him 'more than a pianist. He brings to his piano a passion for the contemporary and a breadth of musical and general culture such as is rare.' Death He died of an AIDS-related illness in 1983, one of the first prominent artists to succumb to the disease. At his funeral on September 27, 1983, Elliott Carter delivered a eulogy, recalling his friendship and collaboration with Jacobs dating back to the mid-1950s. A memorial concert held at New York's Symphony Space on February 24, 1984 was attended by some of America's most eminent composers and interpreters. The music ranged from Josquin to two new compositions dedicated to Jacobs (by William Bolcom and David Schiff). Pierre Boulez wrote in the programme: 'twentieth-century music owes him thanks for all the talent he generously put at its disposal.' Bolcom included a lament for Jacobs as the slow movement of his 1983 Violin Concerto and dedicated his Pulitzer Prize-winning 12 New Etudes to him. He had begun to compose them for Jacobs in 1977 and completed them after his death. Jacobs was also one of the friends and colleagues commemorated by John Corigliano in his Symphony No. 1. Repertoire and style Although Jacobs was associated with some of the most challenging music of the modernist tradition, his colleague Gilbert Kalish stressed that 'far from being an "intellectual performer", Paul was the most intuitive and spontaneous kind of musician. Few who heard him play will ever forget the splashing brilliance of his runs, the glitter of his attacks, his aristocratic sense of rhythm and phrasing ... I have never seen anyone play the piano with such feline grace and alertness.' Of his commitment to