Eduard Lassen (13 April 1830 – 15 January 1904) was aBelgian-Danishcomposer andconductor. Although ofDanish birth, he spent most of his career working as the music director at the court inWeimar. A moderately prolific composer, Lassen produced music in a variety of genres includingoperas,symphonic works,piano works,lieder, andchoral works among others. His most successful pieces were his fine vocal art songs for solo voice and piano which often used elements of German and Belgianfolk music.
He was born inCopenhagen, but was taken as a child toBrussels to which his father was president of theJewishConsistor of Belgium.[1] He was educated at theBrussels Conservatory where he earned prizes for piano (1844) and composition (1847). He won thePrix de Rome in 1851, which provided him with the opportunity to make a long tour inGermany andItaly.[2] While touring he metLouis Spohr andFranz Liszt and composed much of his first operaLe roi Edgard. After returning to Brussels in 1855, Lassen actively sought to get his opera performed but was unable to do so. Liszt, however, agreed to produce the opera at the Grossherzogliches Theater (now theStaatskapelle Weimar) and the work premiered in Weimar in 1857. The following year, Liszt recommended Lassen as his replacement as the court music director in Weimar, which involved conducting both the opera and the court orchestra. He happily took the job and remained in that role until his retirement in 1895. While there he conducted several world premieres including the first performance ofCamille Saint-Saëns'sSamson et Dalila in 1877. He also conducted the first performance in Weimar, and the first outside Munich, ofWagner'sTristan und Isolde (1874).[3]
He remained in Weimar after his retirement and died there in 1904, shortly after receiving an honorary doctorate from theUniversity of Jena.[4]
A moderately prolific composer, Lassen produced fouroperas, a significant amount of instrumental music to stage plays, two symphonies (inD major, performed 1867/published 1868 andC major,Op. 78, published 1884),[5][6] a Violin Concerto in D major, Op.87 (1888), a festival march forsymphony orchestra, twoovertures, and 11 character pieces forpiano. He also produced a significant amount of choral music,lieder, and art songs for voice and piano.[4]
Lassen's operas,Landgraf Ludwig's Brautfahrt (1857),Frauenlob (1861), andLe Captif (1868), did not have lasting success, though his music toGoethe'sFaust (1876) gained popularity and was praised byFranz Liszt. His incidental music toHebbel'sDie Nibelungen (1873) was also well known. In 1878–79, Liszt combined excerpts from both these works in a single piano transcription,Aus der Musik zu Hebbels Nibelungen und Goethes Faust (S.496).
Lassen's solo songs and duets show a variety of treatment from the folklikeSei nur ruhig, lieber Robin or the songs with dance rhythms to the through-composedAbendlandschaft (with its more interesting modulations and accompaniment) to the rhapsodic and improvisatoryIch hab im Traum geweinet. Many of his songs, for instanceVöglein wohin so schnell, were translated into both English and French and were popular at the end of the 19th century.[4]
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