Édouard Lalo

Édouard Lalo worked for years as an orchestral and chamber musician, including as violist in the Armingaud Quartet. Born at Lille in 1823 into a family of Spanish descent, he studied violin and cello at the conservatory there before leaving for Paris in his teens. Recognition came late and by way of Pablo de Sarasate, for whom he wrote the Violin Concerto in F major and then the Symphonie espagnole, a violin concerto in five movements in all but name, first played in 1875. The Cello Concerto in D minor and the ballet Namouna followed, and Le Roi d'Ys, on a Breton legend, finally reached the stage with success in 1888 after years of refusals. He died in Paris in 1892. At the Paris Conservatoire, which he entered at sixteen without his family's support, he studied violin with François Antoine Habeneck and composition privately with Julius Schulhoff and Joseph-Eugène Crèvecœur. He was among the founders of the Armingaud Quartet in 1855, moving later from viola to second violin, and was associated with the Société nationale, set up in 1871 for living French composers; the Norwegian Rhapsody of 1879, the Symphony in G minor of 1886 and a Piano Concerto of 1889 belong to those years. He was made a chevalier of the Legion of Honour in 1880.