DICTIONARY OF MUSIC - El Atril

638 LASSEX LASSUS
success as Renato, De Luna, Hoel, etc., June
28, 1S79 ; Scindia in Massenet's opera abovementioned,
and June 21, ISSl, the Demon
in Rubinstein's opera of that name, on the production
of these works in England. From
1888 to 1893 he played at the same theatre,
under Harris with unvarying success a great
variety of parts, notably the Dutchman, Telramund,
Escamillo; JulylS, 1889, Hans Sachs on
production of ' Jleistersinger ' in Italian, and in
some operas new at that theatre, the most important
being Claude FroUo (Goring Thomas's
'Esmeralda'), .July 12, 1890. In 1896 and 1897
he played with great success in Germany. Since
1901, il. Lassalle has devoted himself to teaching
at Paris, and in Nov. 1903 was appointed
a Professor at the Conservatoire, In 1905 it was
his intention to produce at a private theatre of
his own a new operaof a French composer of great
promise, JI. Kerini, written expressly for himself
and his pmpils. Excellent alike, both as a
singer and an actor, the possessor of a beautiful
voice, an indefatigable worker, JI. Lassalle was
one of the finest artists heard in England during
the last quarter of the 19 th century. A. c.
LASSEN, Eduard, though a native of Copenhagen,
where he was born April 13, 1S30, was
virtually a Belgian musician, since he was taken
to Brussels when only two, entered the Conservatoire
there at twelve, in 1844 took the
first prize as PF. player, in 1847 the same for
harmony, and soon afterwards the second prize
for composition. His successes, which were
many, were crowned by the ' '
pri.x de Rome in
1851, after which he started on a lengthened
tour, through Germany and Italy. Disappointed
in his hopes of getting a five-act opera performed
at Brussels, he betook himself to AVeimar, where
in 1857 it was produced, as 'Landgraf Ludwig's
Brautfahrt,' under the care of Liszt, with great
success. In the following year he was appointed
court music-director, and on the retirement of
Liszt in 1861, succeeded him as conductor of
the opera. A second opera, ' Frauenlob,' was
given in 1861, and a third, ' Le Captif,' was
brought out in Brussels in 1868. At "Weimar
Lassen had the satisfaction to produce 'Tristan
and Isolde' in 1874, at a time when no other
theatre but Munich had dared to do so. He
there published a Symphony in D, a Beethoven
overture, and a Festival ditto, music to Sophocles'
'CEdipus,' to Hebbel's ' Nibelungen,' Goethe's
' Faust, ' Parts 1 and 2, to Devrient's version of Cal-
deron's' Circe, 'and to Goethe's 'Pandora '(188 6).
His works include a second symphony inC, op. 78,
cantata, a Fest-Cantate, a Te Deum, a set of
' Biblische Bilder,' for voices and orchestra, a
large number of songs, and other pieces. [In
1881 he was decorated with the order of Leopold.
His ' Faust ' music has kept the stage all
over Germany. He died at "Weimar, Jan. 15,
1904.]
G.
LASSERRE, Jules, eminent violoncellist,
was born at Tarbes, July 29, 1838, entered the
Paris Conservatoire in 1852, where he gained
the second j>rize in 1853 and the first jirize in
1855. "When the popular concerts of Pasdeloup
were first started, he was appointed solo violon-
cellist ; he has also played with great success
in the princij>al towns of France. During 1859
he was solo violoncellist at the Court of Madrid,
and travelled through Spain. In 1869 he took
up his residence in England, and played principal
violoncello under Sir Michael Costa and
at the Musical Union. Lasserre has written
various compositions both for his own instrument
and for the violin— Etudes, Fantasies,
Romances, Tarantelles, Transcriptions, a violon-
cello 'Method,' etc., etc. He now lives at his
native pilace. T. P. P.
LASSUS, Op.landus, born at Mons in the
first half of the 16th century. His real name
was probably Roland Delattre, but the form de
Lassus seems to have been constantly used in
Mons at the time, and was not his own invention.
He had no fixed mode of writing his name, and
in the prefaces to the first four volumes of the
Fatrocinium Musices, signs himself differently
each time,—Orlandus de Lasso, Orlandus di
Lasso, Orlandus di Lassus, and Orlandus Lassus ;
and again in the ' Lectiones Hiob, '1682, Orlando
de Lasso. In the French editions we usually
find the name Orlando de Lassus, and so it
appears on the statue in his native town. Adrian
Le Roy, however, in some of the Paris editions,
by w-ay perhaps of Latinising the de, calls him
Orlandus Lassusius.
The two works usually referred to for his
early life are Yinchant's Annals of HainauU ;^
and a notice by Van Quickelberg in 1565, in
the Herourii Frosopographia, a biographical
dictionary compuled by Pantaleon. Viuchant,
under the year 1520, writes as follows :
Orland dit Lassus was boni in the to-rni of Mons, in
the same year that Charles V. was proclaimed Emperor
at Aix-la-'Chapelle [15'20]. . . . He was born in the
Rue de Guirlande near the passage leading from the
Black Head. 2 He was chorister in the church of S.
1 The original MS, ia now iii the Mons library. The author lived
between 15SU and 1635,
2 'A I'isaue de la maiaon portant I'enseigne de la noire teste,'
Delmotte (in hia Life of Lassui. Valenciennes, 18361 thinks the
Black Head ' was situated in the Rue Grande, No, 9*2, Counting
s
the number of houses between the 'Poids de fer' Itown weighing-
' houae) and the Maieon de la noire
tete 'in the old records of the town,
he found it to correspond with the
diatance from the foriDer building.
Moreover, Xo, 92 bore, in Delmotte'ft
time, the sign of a helmet, which he
thinks might, in olden time, have
been p.^inted black to imitate iron*
and thus have been called the ' (f.j,f..^>;.npyw
noire
tete." He goes on to siiy, but with-
II
out stating his authority, that this
house. No, 92, had formerly a passage
ai« QriL-nAe^
leading into the Eue de grande Guirlande
(afterwards and now Rue des
CapucinsI between tlie iiouses Nos, 57 and 59, If so, it must have
been a house of importance, with back premises stretching behind
the whole length of the Rue dea Capucins, Kos. 57 and 59 are at
the time of writing (1878) large newhousea, with a passage between
them leading to No, 55, a private houae behind the street. If thia
passage marks the sit« of the original ' issue ' apoken of by Viuchant,
then the honae in wliich Laaaua was bora may have been situated ou
one side of it, at the corner of the Rue de Cantimpr6, Curiously
enough, Matthieu, in his Life of LaMus. says that an laabeau do
Laaaus lived in the Bue do Cantimpr^, Quartier Guirlande, whicll
adda to the probability that a house situated at the corner of the
two streets may have been occupied by the composer.