Édouard Lalo
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Édouard-Victoire-Antoine Lalo (27 January 1823 – 22 April 1892) was a French
Biography
Lalo was born in
For several years, Lalo worked as a string player and teacher in Paris. In 1848, he joined with friends to found the Armingaud Quartet, in which he played the viola and later, second violin. His earliest surviving compositions are songs and chamber works (two early symphonies were destroyed).
In 1865, Lalo married Julie Besnier de Maligny, a
Lalo's distinctive style has earned him a degree of popularity.
His music is notable for its strong melodies and colourful orchestration, with a Germanic solidity that distinguishes him from other French composers of his era. Such works as the Scherzo in D minor, one of his most colourful pieces, embody his distinctive style and strong expressive bent.
Le Roi d'Ys, an opera based on the Breton legend of Ys, is Lalo's most complex and ambitious creation. (This same legend inspired Claude Debussy's La cathédrale engloutie.) Lalo became a member of the Legion of Honour in 1873. Le Roi d'Ys was not initially considered performable and was not staged until 1888, when Lalo was 65 years old. He died in Paris in 1892, leaving several unfinished works, including his opera, La Jacquerie, completed by Arthur Coquard. He was interred at the Père Lachaise Cemetery.
Lalo's son Pierre (6 September 1866 – 9 June 1943) was a music critic who wrote for Le Temps and other French periodicals from 1898 until his death.
Compositions
References in modern culture
In 1962, composer Maurice Jarre used a theme from Lalo's Piano Concerto for the exotic score to Lawrence of Arabia.[citation needed]
English progressive rock group The Nice used a melody from Lalo's Symphonie espagnole for its recording Diary of an Empty Day found on its third album Nice. Most of the lyrics are concerned with the inability of the writer to "find words for this music."[citation needed]
The American science fiction television series, Star Trek: The Next Generation, makes reference to a "U.S.S. Lalo" in two different episodes, "We'll Always Have Paris" and "The Best of Both Worlds"; the reference may be to the French composer, to the Argentine-American television and film music composer Lalo Schifrin, or to both - or neither.
Part of Lalo's Cello Concerto in D minor was used in the second season of Mozart in the Jungle.
References
- Huebner, Steven (2006). French Opera at the Fin de Siècle: Édouard Lalo, Wagnerian. Oxford Univ. Press, US. pp. 231–254. ISBN 978-0-19-518954-4.
- ISBN 1-56159-228-5
External links
- Lalo Piano Trio Nos. 1-3 sound-bites and discussion of works
- Free scores by Édouard Lalo at the International Music Score Library Project (IMSLP)
- The Mutopia Project has compositions by Édouard Lalo
- Encyclopædia Britannica (11th ed.). 1911. .