Page:A Dictionary of Music and Musicians vol 2.djvu/105

LASSERRE, Jules, eminent violoncellist, was born at Tarbes July 29, 1838, entered the Paris Conservatoire in 1852, where he gained the second prize in 1853 and the first prize in 1855. When the popular concerts of Pasdeloup were first started, he was appointed solo violoncellist; he has also played with great success in the principal towns of France. During 1859 he was solo cellist at the Court of Madrid, and travelled through Spain. In 1869 he came to reside permanently in England, since which time he has played principal violoncello under Sir Michael Costa and at the Musical Union. Lasserre has written various compositions both for his own instrument and for the violin Etudes, Fantasies, Romances, Tarantelles, Transcriptions, a violoncello 'Method,' etc., etc.

[ T. P. H. ]

LASSUS, Orlando di, born at Mons in the first half of the 16th century. His real name was probably Delattre, but the form de Lassus seema to have been constantly used in Mons at the time, and was not his own invention. He had no fixed mode of writing his name, and in the prefaces to the first four volumes of the 'Patrocinium Musices,' signs himself differently each time, Orlandus de Lasso, Orlandus di Lasso, Orlandus di Lassus, and Orlandus Lassus; and again in the 'Lectiones Hiob,' 1582, Orlando de Lasso. In the French editions we usually find the name Orlande de Lassus, and so it appears on the statue in his native town. Adrian Le Roy, however, in some of the Paris editions, by way perhaps of Latinizing the de, calls him Orlandus Lassusius.

The two works usually referred to for his early life are Vinchant's 'Annals of ^[1]Hainault'; and a notice by Van Quickelberg in 1565, in the 'Heroum Prosopographia,' a biographical dictionary compiled by Pantaleon. Vinchant, under the year 1520, writes as follows:—

'Orland dit Lassus was born in the town of Mons, in the same year that Charles V was proclaimed Emperor at Aix-la-Chapelle [1520].… He was born in the Rue de Guirlande near the passage leading from the Black Head.^[2] He was chorister in the church of S. Nicolas^[3] in the Rue de Havrecq. After his father was condemned for coining false money etc. the said Orland, who was called Roland de Lattre, changed his name to Orland de Lassus, left the country, and went to Italy with Ferdinand de Gonzague.'

Van Quickelberg^[4] dates his birth ten years later:—

'Orlandus was born at Mons in Hainault in the year 1530. At 7 years old he began his education, and a year and a half later took to music, which he soon understood. The beauty of his voice attracted so much attention, that he was thrice stolen from the school where he lived with the other choristers. Twice his good parents sought and found him, but the third time he consented to remain with Ferdinand Gonzague viceroy of Sicily, at that time commander of the emperor's forces at St. Dizier. The war over, he went with that prince first to Sicily, and then to Milan. After 6 years his voice broke, and at the age of 18 Constantin Castriotto took him to Naples, where he lived for 3 years with the Marquis of Terza. Thence to Rome, where he was the guest of the archbishop of Florence for 6 mouths, at the end of which time he was appointed director of the choir in the church of S. Giovanni in Laterano, by far the most celebrated in Rome.… Two years afterwards he visited England and France with Julius Cæsar Brancaccio, a nobleman and an amateur musician. Returning to his native land, he resided in Antwerp for two years, whence he was called to Munich by Albert of Bavaria in 1557.

It is difficult to decide between the two birthdates 1520 and 1530. Baini places the Roman appointment in 1541, Van Quickelberg in 1551. That Lassus left Rome about 1553, as Van Quickelberg says, is also to be inferred from the preface to his first Antwerp publication (May 13, 1555), where he speaks of his removal from the one city to the other as if recent. Assuming that his life in Rome lasted either 2 years or 12, we may ask whether it is likely that one of the most industrious and prolific composers in the whole history of music, should obtain so high a position as early as 1541, without being known to us as a composer till ^[5]1555; or is it, on the contrary, more likely that a reputation which seems to have been European by the time he went to Munich (1557), could have been gained, without some early and long career as a composer of works which may yet be lying undiscovered in some Italian church or library.

Vinchant alludes to Lassus' father having been condemned as a coiner of false money. Matthieu^[6] has worked hard to refute this, and his examination of the criminal records of Mons casts great improbability on the story. At the same time, and from the same sources, he has brought to light other namesakes of the composer, who if

1. The original MS. is now in the Mons library. The author lived between 1580 and 1635.
2. 'A l'issue de la malson portant l'enselgne de la noire teste.' Delmotte (in his Life of Lassus, Valenciennes, 1836) thinks 'the Black Head 'was situated in the Rue Grande, No. 92. Counting the number of houses between the 'Polds de fer' (town weighing-house) and the 'Maison de la noire tête' in the old records of the town, he found it to correspond with the distance from the former building. Moreover No. 92 bore, in Delmotte's time, the sign of a helmet, which he thinks might, in olden time, have been painted black to imitate iron, and thus have been called the 'noire tête.' He goes on to say, but without stating his authority, that this house, No. 92, had formerly a passage leading into the Rue de grande Guirlande (afterwards and now Rue des Capucius) between the houses Nos. 57 and 59. If so, it must have been a house of importance, with back premises stretching behind the whole length of the Rue des Capucins. Nos. 57 and 59 are at present (1878) large new houses, with a passage between them leading to No. 55, a private house behind the street. If this passage marks the site of the original 'Issue' spoken of by Vinchant, then the house in which Lassus was born may have been situated on one side of it, at tha corner of the Rue de Cantimpré. Curiously enough, Matthieu, in his Life of Lassus, says that an Isabeau de Lassus lived in the Rue de Cantimpré, Quartier Guirlande, which adds to the probability that a house situated at the corner of the two streets may have been occupied by the composer.
3. The church of St. Nicolas was burnt down in the 17th century, and replaced by the present building.
4. Van Quickelberg, whose own biography appears in Pantaleon's book, was born at Antwerp to 1529, and practised as a physician at the court of Munich, while Lassus was chief musician there. We must give great weight to an account written by a contemporary and compatriot, and under the eyes of the composer himself. The date 1530 is no printer's error, as Delmotte suggests, for the account speaks of Lassus as a child at the siege of S. Dizier, which took place in the year 1544. Therefore Van Quickelberg must have meant to say 1530, just as certainly as Vinchant emphasises his date 1520 by a reference to the coronation of the emperor. Judging simply by the authority of the statements, we should certainly give the preference to Van Quickelberg; but Vinchant's date is supported by so many other considerations that we think Delmotte, Fétis, and Ambros are right in preferring it, though it is premature to adopt it absolutely. These dates may be more important than at first sight appears, if some one undertakes a comparison of the influence of Lassus and Palestrina on the history of music.
5. According to Dehn. an edition of motets, dated 1545, is in the library at Bologna. This statement requires some confirmation. The MSS. catalogues of the Italian libraries, in Dehn's possession, some of which are in the Fétis library at Brussels, are not likely to be entirely free from error.
6. Roland de Lattre par Adolphe Matthieu. Gand (no date).