Franz Paul Lachner (2 April 1803 – 20 January 1890) was a German composer and conductor.
Lachner was a well-known and prolific composer in his day, though he is not now considered a major composer. His work, influenced by Ludwig van Beethoven and his friend Franz Schubert, is regarded as competent and craftsman-like, but is now generally little known. Among his greatest successes were his opera Catharina Cornaro (1841, preceding Donizetti by three years), his Requiem, and his seventh orchestral suite (1881).
In the present day it may be his organ sonatas (Opp. 175, 176, 177) and chamber music, in particular his music for wind instruments, that receive the most attention, though his string quartets and some of his eight symphonies have been performed and recorded. His songs, some of which are set to the same texts that Schubert used, contributed to the development of the German Lied.
For performances of Luigi Cherubini's Médée in Frankfurt in 1855, Lachner composed recitatives to replace the original spoken dialogue, and it was this version, translated into Italian, which was used in many twentieth-century revivals and recordings of that opera. Text source : Wikipedia (Hide extended text) ... (Read all)
