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

LASSERRE. LASSERRE,, 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,, 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 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:—

Van Quickelberg dates his birth ten years later:—

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 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 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