John Lanchbery

John Arthur Lanchbery OBE ( born May 15, 1923 in London, † February 27, 2003 in Melbourne, Australia ) was an English, and later Australian conductor and composer who is best known for his ballet compositions.

Life

John Lanchbery was born in London. Early on, he received violin lessons and age of eight he began to compose; thanks to a scholarship, he was accepted at the Royal Academy of Music. However, the studies he had to stop because of military service in World War II. After the end of his military service, he returned to England and continued his studies, he worked for the next Anglo- Soviet Music Press. A little later he was appointed director of the Metropolitan Ballet, with whom he made ​​his debut in Edinburgh in 1948. However, the orchestra had to be dissolved just two years later for financial reasons. Lanchbery began a collaboration with the choreographer Celia Franca and also wrote the music for The Eve of St Agnes, whose story based poem on John Keats ' the same name. This was one of the first commissioned works, which was shown on BBC TV.

Lanchbery came to London's Sadler 's Wells Theatre, where he conducted the music of Stan Kenton to Kenneth MacMillan's ballet Sonnambulism ( 1953). For the Royal Ballet in 1960, he arranged Ferdinand Hérold La Fille mal gardée with a choreography by Frederick Ashton. At this time, Lanchbery was already living mainly on the royalties of his own ballet music compositions, although he was also involved in numerous recordings. In 1966 he wrote for Rudolf Nureyev at the Don Quixote by Léon Minkus and Natalia Makarova, he worked in 1980 which also stems from Minkus ballet La Bayadère for the performance at the American Ballet Theatre has to offer. Also noteworthy is the reworking of MacMillan Meyerling in 1978, for which he changed 30 pieces by Franz Liszt, which must be noted that Lanchbery has been repeatedly criticized for its drastic makeovers. 1970 Lanchbery composed the score for the ballet film, The Tales of Beatrix Potter, where he worked mainly influences the operas of Michael William Balfe, and Arthur Sullivan. He also composed the music for the 1980 resulting directed by Herbert Ross biopic of Vaslav Nijinsky.

John Lanchbery was the first of the operas fashioned in ballets ( The Tales of Hoffmann, The Merry Widow, Die Fledermaus ). He also composed several film scores, such as for Herbert Ross' The Turning Point (1977) and the silent film The Birth of a Nation (1915 ) and John Ford's The Iron Horse ( 1924). Based on pieces of music of Cole Porter composed the music for Lanchbery Evil Under the Sun (1982 ), where he also Diana Riggs You're the Top interpreted.

1991 Lanchbery was taken as Officer in the Order of the British Empire, and received several awards in Russia and Sweden. He was from 1951 to 1960 with the Director of the Sadler's Wells Theatre, Elaine Fifield, married; together they have a daughter. 2002 Lanchbery was an Australian citizen. He died on 27 February 2003 in Melbourne.

Works (selection)

  • Title - Original Composer
  • The Tales of Beatrix Potter - Michael William Balfe and others; a part of the music is by Lanchbery
  • The Hunchback of Notre Dame - Hector Berlioz
  • A Month in the Country - Frédéric Chopin
  • Peer Gynt - Edvard Grieg (based on the Peer Gynt suites)
  • La Fille mal gardée - Ferdinand Herold
  • Somnambulism - Stan Kenton
  • The Merry Widow - Franz Lehár
  • Mayerling - Franz Liszt
  • Dracula - Liszt
  • The Dream - Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy
  • Don Quixote - Ludwig Minkus
  • La Bayadère - Minkus
  • Grand Pas Classique from Paquita - Minkus
  • House of Birds - Federico Mompou
  • The Tales of Hoffmann - Jacques Offenbach
  • Le Papillon - Offenbach
  • Cleopatra - Nikolai Andreyevich Rimsky-Korsakov
  • Monotones - Erik Satie
  • Designs with Strings - Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky (based on the Piano Trio in A minor )

Recordings

  • Swan Lake with the London Philharmonia Orchestra (1982 )
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