大象传媒

Donald Macleod considers why the bitter arguments of the opposing factions present at the first night of Lalo's only ballet, Namouna, overshadowed the brilliance of the music.

Even if you know the name, it's possible you might not be able to place the French composer Edouard Lalo date-wise. He was born in Lille in 1823. Berlioz was his senior in age by some twenty years, Saint-Sa毛ns twelve years his junior. Lalo has a direct contemporary in the shape of C茅sar Franck, another composer who preferred to stay out of the limelight. As a musician, Lalo cut an independent path, preferring to complete his music studies privately rather than following the accepted route of attending the Paris Conservatoire.

Lalo had a retiring nature, a man who appears to have preferred the quiet life. That doesn't mean he wasn't sociable. He seems to have been generally well liked. He lived in Paris from the age of sixteen and mixed with and knew all the leading musical personalities of the day. Aside from the Symphonie espagnole, he wrote several operas, a ballet, a symphony, a whole number of orchestral and chamber works including three piano trios and a string quartet, and something in the region of 30 songs.

Trying to get a handle on Lalo isn't straightforward. The first letter that鈥檚 been preserved dates from 1848, by which time Lalo was in his late twenties. His son Pierre was a primary source of information about his father, but more recent research indicates the picture he drew seems to have been somewhat rose-tinted. The first full length biography in English has yet to be published.

Donald Macleod sets about mapping the life and the music of this elusive, yet significant figure in French musical history in a survey that takes us from Lalo's early experiences in Lille, where he first met Berlioz, to his eventual triumph, age sixty on the opera stage with Le roi d'Ys.

Lalo wasn't that keen on writing a ballet. He'd only been offered the job to make up for not having his opera performed. In the end the venture proved so stressful, it cost him his health.

Namouna (Act 1)
Valse de la Cigarette
Royal Philharmonic Orchestra
Yondani Butt, conductor

Symphony in G minor
III: Adagio
Malaysian Philharmonic Orchestra
Kees Bakels, conductor

Namouna Suite no 2 鈥�
I. Danse marocaine
II. Mazurka
III. La Sieste
V. Pas de Cymbales
V. Danse des esclaves
Spanish Radio and Television Symphony Orchestra
Carlos Kalmar, conductor

Piano Trio in A Minor, Op. 26
I: Allegro appassionato
Gryphon Trio

Cello Concerto in D minor
II: Intermezzo
III: Introduction: Andante - Allegro vivace
Johannes Moser, violin
Prague Philharmonia
Jakub Hr暖拧a, conductor

Producer: Johannah Smith