Charles Philippe Lafont 1781 – 1839

[Hector]

We seem to have remarkably few recordings or performances of Lafont's music compared with other violinist-composers of the era, for instance Rode or Kreutzer, does any one know why that is? There's not even much on IMSLP.

[Hector]

Perhaps the answer to the question of why we have so few recordings or performances of Lafont's music, despite the fame he enjoyed in his lifetime, is that no one is particularly interested now? Also, I read that not that much of his music was published. 

[Mark Thomas]

You are probably correct in that assumption. Many unsung composers remain unrecorded until someone who is interested in them decides to put their hands in their pockets and pay for a recording.

[Jonathan]

Even Liszt's "Grand Duo concertant sur la Romance de M. Lafont (S.128)", for violin and piano is only included in complete editions of Liszt's violin and piano music.  The Liszt Society published the score of the original work (by Lafont) alongside the Liszt work a few years ago.

[eschiss1]

BNF has 132 printed and 13 manuscript entries of scores composed by him (or partially by him). Don't know just offhand how many are of different publications of the same work, but even that militates against an impression of a composer who was never remembered. Of the works at BNF that Gallica has digitized (and many more in their catalog haven't been), not all have been mirrored at IMSLP yet, either (e.g. C'est une larme, by Lafond ("presumably" Lafont) , the Lafont/Kalkbrenner Op.97 Grand duo here, and La mélancolie, duo in D major on Russian themes by Lafont, none of which are, near as I can tell, as yet uploaded, likewise several other already-digitized works.)

[promusician]

There are 7 violin concertos, which not a single one was recorded. VC 2,3,4,6,7 have their score and parts in BNF.

[Hector]

There's an interesting, if not concise, article about Lafont and Paganini on Peter-Sheppard-Skaerved's website....

https://www.peter-sheppard-skaerved.com/2010/12/charles-philippe-lafont-variations-on-la-vestale/