Louis Lacombe
Encyclopedia
Bourges
Bourges is a city in central France on the Yèvre river. It is the capital of the department of Cher and also was the capital of the former province of Berry.-History:...
(Cher
Cher
Cher is an American recording artist, television personality, actress, director, record producer and philanthropist. Referred to as the Goddess of Pop, she has won an Academy Award, a Grammy Award, an Emmy Award, three Golden Globes and a Cannes Film Festival Award among others for her work in...
)– September 30, 1884, Saint-Vaast-la-Hougue
Saint-Vaast-la-Hougue
Saint-Vaast-la-Hougue is a commune in the Manche department in Normandy in north-western France.-Geography:Saint-Vaast-la-Hougue is situated in the Manche département, in the Basse-Normandie région. It is in the Quettehou canton, of the Cherbourg arrondissement. The town had a population of 2,097...
, (Marne
Marne
Marne is a department in north-eastern France named after the river Marne which flows through the department. The prefecture of Marne is Châlons-en-Champagne...
) was a French
France
The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...
pianist and composer.
Biography
Louis Lacombe was born in Bourges, the brother of composer Felicita CasellaFelicita Casella
Felicita Casella née Lacombe was an Italian singer and composer of French birth. She was born at Bourges, the sister of Louis Lacombe...
. He showed unusual musical abilities at very young age and was soon hailed as a child prodigy
Child prodigy
A child prodigy is someone who, at an early age, masters one or more skills far beyond his or her level of maturity. One criterion for classifying prodigies is: a prodigy is a child, typically younger than 18 years old, who is performing at the level of a highly trained adult in a very demanding...
. He studied piano
Piano
The piano is a musical instrument played by means of a keyboard. It is one of the most popular instruments in the world. Widely used in classical and jazz music for solo performances, ensemble use, chamber music and accompaniment, the piano is also very popular as an aid to composing and rehearsal...
at the Paris Conservatoire from 1829 to 1832 with Pierre Zimmermann and won first prize in piano
Piano
The piano is a musical instrument played by means of a keyboard. It is one of the most popular instruments in the world. Widely used in classical and jazz music for solo performances, ensemble use, chamber music and accompaniment, the piano is also very popular as an aid to composing and rehearsal...
performance at only age 12 in 1831. He began touring Western Europe after leaving the Conservatoire, and in 1834 he studied composition in Vienna
Vienna
Vienna is the capital and largest city of the Republic of Austria and one of the nine states of Austria. Vienna is Austria's primary city, with a population of about 1.723 million , and is by far the largest city in Austria, as well as its cultural, economic, and political centre...
with Carl Czerny
Carl Czerny
Carl Czerny was an Austrian pianist, composer and teacher. He is best remembered today for his books of études for the piano. Czerny's music was profoundly influenced by his teachers, Muzio Clementi, Johann Nepomuk Hummel, Antonio Salieri and Ludwig van Beethoven.-Early life:Carl Czerny was born...
, and theory with Ignaz von Seyfried
Ignaz von Seyfried
Ignaz Xaver Ritter von Seyfried was an Austrian musician, conductor and composer.Seyfried was born in Vienna. According to a statement in his handwritten memoirs he was a pupil of both Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart and Johann Albrechtsberger. He published Albrechtsberger's complete written works after...
and Simon Sechter
Simon Sechter
Simon Sechter was an Austrian music theorist, teacher, organist, conductor and composer.Sechter was born in Friedberg , Bohemia, then part of the Austrian Empire, and moved to Vienna in 1804, succeeding Jan Václav Voříšek as court organist there in 1824. In 1810 he began teaching piano and voice...
. At the end of the decade, he settled in Paris
Paris
Paris is the capital and largest city in France, situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...
and married his first wife; his second wife, Andrea Lacombe (née Favel), whom he married in 1869, was a singer.
In Paris, Lacombe initially established himself as a virtuoso pianist, increasingly dedicating himself to composition and music criticism. (His essays were partly reprinted in a posthumous collection, Philosophie et musique (1896).)
Lacombe's first published works include a piano quintet
Piano quintet
In European classical music, a piano quintet is a work of chamber music written for piano and four other instruments, most commonly piano, two violins, viola, and cello . Among the most frequently performed piano quintets are those by Robert Schumann, Johannes Brahms, César Franck, Antonín Dvořák...
, a trio, and some piano pieces. He wrote a number of dramatic symphonies
Symphony
A symphony is an extended musical composition in Western classical music, scored almost always for orchestra. A symphony usually contains at least one movement or episode composed according to the sonata principle...
with soloist and choir, and his cantata
Cantata
A cantata is a vocal composition with an instrumental accompaniment, typically in several movements, often involving a choir....
, Sappho, was performed at the famous Paris Exposition Universelle (1878)
Exposition Universelle (1878)
The third Paris World's Fair, called an Exposition Universelle in French, was held from 1 May through to 10 November 1878. It celebrated the recovery of France after the 1870 Franco-Prussian War.-Construction:...
.
He wrote several opera
Opera
Opera is an art form in which singers and musicians perform a dramatic work combining text and musical score, usually in a theatrical setting. Opera incorporates many of the elements of spoken theatre, such as acting, scenery, and costumes and sometimes includes dance...
s, but only two were performed in his lifetime. La madone was a completely modern composition with musical continuity through each act, elaborate orchestration, and only a small amount of spoken dialogue. However, the opening night response was described as lukewarm. Madame Boniface, a two-act comic piece, was performed in 1883, late in his life. Perhaps his finest work is Winkelried (1892), a four-act grand opera that premiered posthumously. Steven Huebner, writing in Grove, states "musically the score is worth more recognition than it has received. It betrays none of the influence of Gounod
Charles Gounod
Charles-François Gounod was a French composer, known for his Ave Maria as well as his operas Faust and Roméo et Juliette.-Biography:...
seen in so many French operas of the period. Though it is conservative in form, the orchestration and harmonic style are rich (...) Stirring homorhythmic choruses make Winkelried a fine vehicle for Swiss patriotic sentiment."
Lacombe died in Saint-Vaast-la-Hougue, a small town located on the English Channel
English Channel
The English Channel , often referred to simply as the Channel, is an arm of the Atlantic Ocean that separates southern England from northern France, and joins the North Sea to the Atlantic. It is about long and varies in width from at its widest to in the Strait of Dover...
, at age 65.
Operas
- La madone, (opéra comique, 1 act, P.F. de Carmouche), f.p. 16 January 1861, Théâtre Lyrique, Paris.
- Winkelried, (opéra, 4 acts, L. Bonnemère & Moreau-Sainti), ms. 1876-1881, f.p. 17 February 1892, Grand Théâtre, GenevaGenevaGeneva In the national languages of Switzerland the city is known as Genf , Ginevra and Genevra is the second-most-populous city in Switzerland and is the most populous city of Romandie, the French-speaking part of Switzerland...
. - Madame Boniface, (opéra, 3 acts, E. Dupré & Clairville), f.p. autumn 1883, Théâtre Bouffes-Parisiens, Paris.
- Le tonnelier de Nuremberg, (opéra-comique, 2 acts, Charles-Louis-Etienne NuitterCharles-Louis-Etienne NuitterCharles-Louis-Étienne Nuitter was a French librettist, translator, writer and librarian born in Paris, France on 24 April 1828. He died there on 23 February 1899 after suffering a stroke a few days before.-Librettist and translator:...
, after E.T.A. Hoffmann) in German as: Meister Martin und seine Gesellen, f.p. 7 March 1897, KoblenzKoblenzKoblenz is a German city situated on both banks of the Rhine at its confluence with the Moselle, where the Deutsches Eck and its monument are situated.As Koblenz was one of the military posts established by Drusus about 8 BC, the...
. - Le Corrigane, ou La reine des eaux (opéra, 3 acts, Nuitter) in German as: Die Korrigane, f.p. 14 March 1901, SondershausenSondershausenSondershausen is a town in Thuringia, Germany, capital of the Kyffhäuserkreis district, situated about 50 km north of Erfurt. On 1 December 2007, the former municipality Schernberg was incorporated by Sondershausen....
. - Le festin de pierre, (comic opera, 1 act, Clairville), in German as: Der Kreuzritter, f.p. 21 March 1902, Sondershausen.
External links
- Louis Lacombe Biography of Lacombe and list of compositions (in German).