LALO, Édouard

Born in Lille, Jan 27, 1823
Paris, April 22, 1892

• Lalo worked throughout his life to achieve commercial success as a composer, enduring a series of rejections and failures until at last, four years before his death, his opera Le roi d’Ys became a hit in 1888.¹

‘It’s hard enough doing my own kind of music and making sure that it’s good enough. If I started to do someone else’s I’m sure it would be appalling.’

Lalo, on originality ²

‘While I do not know exactly what I am, I do know what I am not. I am not a member of any school, and I do not adhere to any system. I agree with the poet Musset: ‘My glass is small, but I drink from my glass.’

Lalo on originality, again ³

1. Hugh Macdonald, “Lalo, Edouard(-Victoire-Antoine),” Grove Music Online (2001), accessed November 6, 2019,  https://www.oxfordmusiconline.com/grovemusic/view/10.1093/gmo/9781561592630.001.0001/omo-9781561592630-e-0000015865.
2. Ibid.
3. Edward Blakeman, liner notes to Lalo: Concerto Russe et al, Olivier Charlier, BBC Philharmonic, Yan Pascal Tortelier, Chandos 9758, CD, 1999.