John Lanchbery

Early life

John Lanchbery was born in London on May 15, 1923. He took violin lessons from the age of eight, when he started composing. He was educated at Alleyn's School, where he formed a lifetime friendship and collaborative partnership with Peter Stanley Lyons, later a famous chorister and choral conductor, and Kenneth Spring, founder of the National Youth Theatre, whose mother was a composer and encouraged Lanchbery’s musical talent.

In 1942 he was awarded the Henry Smart Composition Scholarship to the Royal Academy of Music, where he studied under Sir Henry Wood until his studies were interrupted by the war, during which he served in the Royal Armoured Corps. After the war, Lanchbery spent two more years at the RAM. He then returned to Alleyn's School as the second music master, hoping to be offered the position of Director of Music: when the job failed to materialise, he left to work for a music publisher.

Conductor of London Metropolitan Ballet and Sadler's Wells Theatre Ballet: 1948 - 1959

While Lanchbery working in the music press, he was recommended to apply for the post of Conductor of the Metropolitan Ballet. He obtained the position and made his debut with them at Edinburgh in 1948. Two years later the orchestra collapsed for lack of funds. However, working with choreographer Celia Franca, Lanchbery wrote The Eve of St Agnes (the story was based on John Keats' poem of the same name), one of the first commissioned ballets to be shown on BBC television. He composed film scores for Eric Robinson before joining the Sadler's Wells Theatre Ballet (later the Royal Ballet touring company) in 1951, with whom he proceeded to orchestrate, in 1953, the first professional ballet choreographed by Kenneth MacMillan: Somnambulism whose music was composed with music by Stan Kenton. Lanchbery also orchestrated The House of Birds (La Casa de los Pájaros) in 1955, with original music by Federico Mompou.

Principal Conductor of Royal Ballet: 1959 - 1972

He served as Principal Conductor of the Royal Bellet from 1959 from 1972. He arranged La fille mal gardée (original music by Ferdinand Hérold and others), to choreography by Frederick Ashton, for the Royal Ballet in 1960. Lanchbery's delightful re-working also included some Donizetti and much of his own invention. This work includes the famous Clog Dance used for many years as a theme tune for Home This Afternoon on BBC radio.

In addition to the revenue from his recordings, Lanchbery had his income supplemented by the copyright he earned from his orchestral arrangements, which were used by ballet companies all over the world. With Aston, he composed The Two Pigeons; A Month in the Country; and The Dream, one of the most critically acclaimed ballet versions of A Midsummer Night's Dream.

In 1966 Rudolf Nureyev asked Lanchbery to re-write Ludwig Minkus's Don Quixote. Arguably, Don Quixote was not a satisfactory ballet score until Lanchbery re-arranged it, although Minkus's original version has twice been recorded complete in recent years.

Although he resigned from the position of Director of the Royal Ballet in 1972, he continued to conduct regularly for the Company until 2001.

Principal Conductor of Australian Ballet: 1972 - 1977

Notable successes for Lanchbery included the arrangement of the Liszt music for Kenneth MacMillan's stormy multi-act Mayerling, which premiered at Covent Garden in 1978, and the arrangement of the Franz Lehar score for the first full-length ballet production of The Merry Widow for the Australian Ballet in 1976. In 1970 he arranged the score for the ballet film The Tales of Beatrix Potter. His sources were many and varied, including the operas of Michael William Balfe and Arthur Sullivan. He also arranged the music and conducted the orchestra for Nijinsky in 1980.

Lanchbery was the first to convert operas into ballets (The Tales of Hoffmann, The Merry Widow, Die Fledermaus), and he also wrote music for some British films of the 1960s, including Deadly Nightshade (1953) and Colonel March Investigates (1955). He was involved in The Turning Point (1977), starring Mikhail Baryshnikov and Leslie Browne, and his score for Evil Under the Sun (1982) was based on songs by Cole Porter, a memorable rendition of "You're The Top" by Diana Rigg. He also wrote scores for two silent film classics: D. W. Griffith's The Birth of a Nation and John Ford's The Iron Horse.

Director of American Ballet Theatre: 1978 - 1980

The American Ballet Theatre used 14 Lanchbery arrangements between 1962 and 2002: he was the Musical Director of the Company between 1978 and 2002. Their productions included his arrangement, for Natalia Makarova, Minkus's La Bayadère in 1980. Lanchbery arranged more than 30 pieces by Franz Liszt for Macmillan's Mayerling, which premiered at Covent Garden in 1978, and arranged another successful re-working of Minkus for Nureyev's production of La Bayadère in 1991. Nureyev considered Lanchbery to be the greatest conductor of his time, but critics who disliked innovation disliked Lanchbery’s tampering with original scores.

Visiting Conductor

In addition to London, Australia, and Sweden, Lanchbery was a guest conductor at many of the world's leading opera houses, including Paris, Stockholm, Rio de Janeiro, New York and Houston. He also toured Japan, Russia and China. He received honours from Russia and Sweden.

Honours

Lanchbery was the first non-Soviet conductor to receive the Bolshoi Medal. He also receiced the Carina Ari Medal and the Queen Elizabeth II Coronation Award, Britain’s highest professional award. In 1990 he was appointed an Officer of the Order of the British Empire.

Personal life

Lanchbery married the Sadler's Wells Principal Elaine Fifield in 1951. They had a daughter, Margaret Lanchbery, and divorced in 1960: Elaine died in 1999. Lanchbery became an Australian citizen in 2002, making his home in Melbourne, where he died on 27 February 2003. He wad survived by his daughter, Margaret, of Melbourne, and his companion, Thomas Han.

He was a member of the Garrick Club.

Works

Some of the most popular ballets are arrangements of works written for a different purpose. Perhaps the best-known is Alexander Glazunov's arrangement of Frédéric Chopin's piano music into the ballet Les Sylphides. Another famous example is La Boutique fantasque, an arrangement of Gioachino Rossini's music by Ottorino Respighi in 1919. However, Lanchbery was the most successful and prolific arranger of music for ballet.

Lanchbery's works included supporting tertiary students: during a 1976 visit to Australia, Lanchbery conducted the 27th Intervarsity Choral Festival choir performing Rossini's Petite Messe Solonelle and Gaudeamus igitur in Hobart.