Works
A moderately prolific composer, Lassen produced three operas, a significant amount of instrumental music to stage plays, two symphonies (in D major, ca.1868 and C major, Op. 78, published 1884), a festival march for symphony orchestra, two overtures, and 11 characterstücke for piano. He also produced a significant amount of choral music, lieder, and art songs for voice and piano.
Lassen's operas, Landgraf Ludwig's Brautfahrt (1857), Frauenlob (1861), and Le Captif (1868), did not have lasting success, though his music to Goethe's Faust (1876) gained popularity and was praised by Franz Liszt. His incidental music to Hebbel's Die Nibelungen (1873) was also well known. In 1878-79, Liszt combined excerpts from both these works in a single piano transcription, Aus der Musik zu Hebbels Nibelungen und Goethes Faust (S.496).
Lassen's solo songs and duets show a variety of treatment from the folklike Sei nur ruhig, lieber Robin or the songs with dance rhythms to the through-composed Abendlandschaft (with its more interesting modulations and accompaniment) to the rhapsodic and improvisatory Ich hab im Traum geweinet. Many of his songs, for instance Vöglein wohin so schnell, were translated into both English and French and were popular at the end of the 19th century.
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—George Bernard Shaw (1856–1950)