主播大秀

Donald Macleod follows the budding musician to Paris, where he pursues his dream of devoting his life to music, as a violinist and as a composer. Music includes his Cello Concerto.

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's building block approach to learning the art of composing starts to pay off as he builds his confidence writing songs and then chamber works.

Deux impromptus, op 4
I : Esp茅rance
Maria Due帽as, violin
Itamar Golan, piano

Symphonie Espagnole in D minor, op 21
II : Scherzando 鈥� Allegro molto
Ren茅 Capu莽on, violin
Orchestre de Paris
Paavo J盲rvi, conductor

Trois m茅lodies
La fenaison
Six romance populaires
IV : Si j鈥櫭﹖ais petit oiseau
I : La pauvre femme
Teresa Zylis-Gara, soprano
Christian Ivaldi, piano

Piano Quintet ["Grand Quintette" in A鈾� major]
2nd movement
Dorian Lamotte, violin
Agn猫s Reverdy, violin
Marc Desmons, viola
Florent Audibert, cello
Fran莽ois Dumont, piano

Cello Concerto in D minor
I. Pr茅lude. Lento - Allegro maestoso
Johannes Moser, violin
Prague Philharmonia
Jakub Hr暖拧a, conductor

Rapsodie norv茅gienne
Monte-Carlo National Opera Orchestra
Paul Paray, conductor

Producer: Johannah Smith