Blas de Laserna Nieva was a Spanish

Spain

Spain , officially the Kingdom of Spain languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Spain's official name is as follows:;;;;;;), is a country and member state of the European Union located in southwestern Europe on the Iberian Peninsula...

 composer.

Biography

Laserna was one of the most prolific and popular songwriters of late eighteenth and early nineteenth century Spain.

As an educator, he championed traditional Spanish musical forms

Music of Spain

The Music of Spain has a long history and has played an important part in the development of western music. It has had a particularly strong influence upon Latin American music. The music of Spain is often associated abroad with traditions like flamenco and the classical guitar but Spanish music...

, but as a theatrical impresario gave in to the public taste for Italian forms.

He composed several operas and concertos, as well as incidental music for several comedies in the popular Spanish theater. A prolific songwriter, his creative oeuvre contains more than five hundred songs (tonadillas), many with lyrics by Ramón de la Cruz

Ramón de la Cruz

Ramón de la Cruz , Spanish neoclassical dramatist, was born in Madrid.He was a clerk in the ministry of finance, and is the author of three hundred sainetes, little farcical sketches of city life, written to be played between the acts of a longer play. He published a selection in ten volumes...

.

While Conductor of the orchestra of the Teatro de la Cruz

Teatro de la Cruz

The Teatro de la Cruz was, during its nearly two-hundred year existence, the principal theater for comedy in Madrid.-History:Founded by the Hermandad de la Soledad in the seventeenth century, it soon became the premier venue of its time for Spanish comedy....

, he premiered his operetta

Operetta

Operetta is a genre of light opera, light in terms both of music and subject matter. It is also closely related, in English-language works, to forms of musical theatre.-Origins:...

, La Gitanilla Por Amor (The Gypsy Girl

Gypsy Girl

Gypsy Girl was a TV series that ran on CITV in early 2001, based on the books The Parsley Parcel and Gold and Silver Water by Elizabeth Arnold. It centred around a gypsy girl and her family, who lived in a typical gypsy caravan on the corner of a typical suburban street. Her great-grandmother was...

For Love), in 1791.