A Dictionary of Music and Musicians/Lachnith, Ludwig

LACHNITH, Ludwig Wenzel, born July 7, 1746, at Prague, migrated to the service of the Duke at Zweibrücken, and thence to Paris, where he made his début at the Concert Spirituel as a horn player. He was a clever handy creature, who wrote not only quantities of all kinds of instrumental music, but at least four operas, and several pasticcios and other pieces. His most notable achievements however, were his adaptations of great operas, by way of making them pleasant to the public, such as 'Les mystères d'Isis,' for which both libretto and music of the Magic Flute were 'arranged' into what M. Fétis calls 'a monstrous ^[1]compilation' (Grand Opera, Aug. 20 [App. p.694 "Aug. 23"], 1801). No wonder that the piece was called 'Les misères d'ici,' and that Lachnith was styled 'le dérangeur.' He was clever also at working up the music of several composers into one piece, and torturing it to the expression of different words and sentiments from those to which it had originally been set—as 'Le Laboureur Chinois,' in which the music of 'several celebrated composers' was 'arrangée par M. Lachnitch' (Feb. 5, 1813). In these crimes he had an accomplice in the elder Kalkbrenner, who assisted Him to concoct two 'Oratorios in action'—Saul (April 6, 1803) and 'The taking of Jericho' (April 11, 1805). We were as bad in England several years later, and many fine operas of Rossini, Auber, and quasi-Weber were first made known to Londoners by much the same expedients as those of Lachnith, in the hands of T. P. Cooke, Lacy, and others. [App. p.694 add "date of death, 1884."]

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1. See the account by O. Jahn (Mozart, 2nd ed., ii. 537). The magic flute and all the comic music were omitted; Papageno was turned into a shepherd sage; while many pieces were left out, others were put in—as for instance 'Fin ch'an dal vino,' arranged at a duet! The opera opened with Mozart's finale, and the disorder must have been complete. And yet it ran 49 nights!