LASSEN, Eduard, b. 13.4.1830 in Copenhagen, b. 15.1.1904 in Weimar, was a German composer with Danish roots. He entered the Brussels Conservatory in 1842 and won first prize in the Belgian national composition competition in 1851. He then travelled to Germany and Italy and met Franz Liszt in Weimar, who named him as his successor as director of the court orchestra. Lassen held this position until 1895 and conducted Wagner’s Meistersinger (1869) and Tristan (1874) as well as the premier of C. Saint-Saëns' opera Samson and Delilah (1877).
Works: 227 piano songs, overtures including Beethoven-Ouvertüre (1870), as well as works for the stage and theater.
Lassen, who never denied the French influence on his musical education, was unable to achieve lasting success with his three operas. He did achieve renown in Weimar for his music for Otto Devrient’s 1876 staging of both parts of Goethe’s Faust. Lassen’s piano pieces achieved great international acclaim. He created a personal style from French influences and Franz Liszt’s music.
