Napoleon Lambelet

Napoleon Lambelet ( Greek Ναπολέων Λαμπελέτ ; * 1864 in Corfu ; † September 25, 1932 in London ) was a Greek-British composer.

Lambelet came from a family of musicians of Swiss origin. The Geneva-born grandfather Evtychios Lambelet settled in Corfu after a career in Italy as a pianist after concerts as the piano accompanist of Maria Malibran . His father Edouardos Lambelet (1820-1903) was a composer and student of Nikolaos Mantzaros , the younger brother Georgios (1875-1945) was an early representative of the Greek National School and an important music writer, the other siblings were all partly important musicians.

Agnostus (Άγνωστος, 1888)

He received his first piano lessons from his mother, his father taught him music theory and harmony. With a scholarship from his home community, he went to study composition at the Conservatory of San Pietro a Majella in Naples in 1878 , where he made friends with Dionysios Lavrangas . After his return from Italy in 1885, he settled in Athens and became a singing professor at the Athens Conservatory for two years . Problems with the management forced him to resign in 1887. (The occasion was a concert by the conservatory choir, at which the necessary piano accompaniment of the choir had been banned so that he would not turn his back on the royal family present.) So he founded a music school ( Mousikí Scholí Μουσική Σχολή), where singing, Piano and instrumental lessons were given. The students also formed a 25-member choir and a music theater group in which the later famous tenor Ioannis Apostolou (1860–1905) sang. In addition to teaching at other schools, he led various music ensembles in Athens and Piraeus, composed numerous, sometimes very popular songs and conducted the Athens premiere of the first Greek-language opera, O ypopsifios (Ο υποψήφιος, “The Candidate”) by Spyridon Xyndas . Between 1888 and 1892 he composed the music for some Komidyllia .

In 1893 Lambelet moved to Alexandria at the invitation of the local Greek community , where he directed the Averófia Mousikí Akadimía (Αβερώφεια Μουσική Ακαδημία), with which he had an orchestra comprising 60 instruments, which he chaired from 1894-96. Among the works from his Egyptian time are a “Sudanese Serenade” (Σουδανέζικη σερενάτα) for orchestra and a “War Anthem” (Θούριον) for an Egyptian exhibition. In 1894 he performed the opera Markos Botsaris by Pavlos Carrer in Alexandria , which toured all over Egypt with great success.

From 1895 Lambelet began to travel through Europe as a conductor and eventually settled in London, where he became one of the leading theater entrepreneurs, opera and operetta composers in the West End of London . The works of this period include The Yashmak , the adaptation of an Armenian operetta that was composed in Constantinople in 1896 (1897), The Transit of Venus (Musical Comedy, 1898), Pot-Pourri (Musical Comedy, 1899), Fenella (opera, 1906) and the "Romantic Comedy Opera" Valentine (1918), which had 87 performances. To Sidney Jones ' (1861-1946) successful musical comedy The Geisha (1896) he contributed a "laughing song", which enjoyed great fame. Some separately published songs and salon pieces also became popular in England, such as Grammatical Grievances and The Wonderful Island . Although Lambelet became a citizen of the United Kingdom, he kept in touch with Athens and also made guest appearances there with some of his plays and as a piano accompanist for his own songs. On February 16, 1929 he was honored with a concert in Athens on the occasion of his 50 years of work. Another part of his compositional work is liturgical music for Orthodox worship in Greece and London.

literature

• Takis Kalogeropoulos: Napoleon Lambelet , in: Lexiko tis Ellinikis mousikis , Athens 1998–99 ( online at wiki.musicportal.gr)

Web links

• Short portrait of Lambelets

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Output  ( page no longer available , search in web archives )  Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. at Boosey & Hawkes