Norwegian Rhapsody (Lalo-Pollen)

Édouard-Victoire-Antoine Lalo (27th January 1823 - 22nd April 1892) was a French composer and was born in Lille, in northernmost France. He attended that city's music conservatory in his youth. Then, beginning at age 16, he studied at the Paris Consevatoire under Belioz’s old enemy Francois Antoine Habeneck. For several years, he worked as a string player and teacher in Paris. He joined with friends to found of the Armingaud Quartet, playing viola and second violin. His earliest surviving compositions are songs and chamber works. (Two early symphonies were destroyed.) Julie Besnier de Maligny, a contralto from Brittany, became his bride in 1865. Lalo did not gain fame as a composer until his late forties. He died in Paris at age 69, leaving several unfinished works.