Édouard Lalo

Édouard Lalo's reputation rests, above all, on his three most successful and, at the same time, most characteristic works: the Symphonie espagnole, the ballet Namouna, and the opera Le roi d'Ys. In spite of the objections of his father, who would have preferred him to follow another profession, he showed a marked predilection for music from a very early age. He left his native Lille and attended Habeneck's violin class at the Paris Conservatoire while studying composition privately, but his first works – two trios – encountered such indifference that the discouraged composer abandoned music for several years. His marriage to a singer with a magnificent contralto voice revived his interest in music and he wrote Fiesque, a three-act opera based on Schiller, that was unfortunately never staged. His next works proved more successful, including, as they did, his two Aubades, his F Major Violin Concerto, and his famous Symphonie espagnole, introduced by the great Spanish violinist Pablo Sarasate in 1875. It was this last piece, with its fresh and striking melodies, that proved his greatest success. His career as a composer culminated in two theatrical works, the ballet Namouna, first staged at the Paris Opéra in 1882, and his most celebrated piece of all, the opera Le roi d'Ys, which, with its charming folk idiom, was finally mounted at the Opéra-Comique in 1888.