Lachnith, Ludwig Wenzel

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Lachnith, Ludwig Wenzel

Lachnith, Ludwig Wenzel, Bohemian horn player and composer; b. Prague, July 7, 1746; d. Paris, Oct. 3, 1820. He studied violin, harpsichord, and horn, then joined the orch. in Pfalz-Zweibrücken. About 1780 he went to Paris and studied with Rodolphe (horn) and F.A. Philidor (composition). He is known chiefly for his pasticcios;an instance is his oratorio Saul (April 6, 1803), with music taken from scores by Mozart, Haydn, Cimarosa, Paisiello, Gossec, and Philidor. He also arranged the music of Mozart’s Die Zauberflöte, to a libretto reworked by Etienne Morel de Chefdeville, and produced it under the title Les Mystères d’lsis (Aug. 20, 1801), justly parodied as Les Misères d’ici. In several of his ventures he had the older Kalkbrenner as his collaborator.Among his original works were the operas L’Heureuse Réconciliation (June 25, 1785) and Eugénie et Linval (1798), syms., 6 concertos for Harpsichord or Piano, and chamber music.

—Nicolas Slonimsky/Laura Kuhn/Dennis McIntire