DUPARC, Marie Eugene Henri Fouques
b Paris, 22 January 1848
d Mont-de-Marsan, 12 February 1933, aged eighty-five

He was educated at the Jesuit College of Vaugirard, where the music master was Franck, whose group of young composers he joined. One of them, Chausson, became his life-long friend. In 1869 he went to Weimar where, in Liszt's house, he met Wagner, whose music influenced him greatly. He also painted very well, but in this and his music he was self-critical to a morbid degree, destroying a great deal of his work. In 1885, at the age of thirty-seven, he abandoned composition altogether and left Paris for Switzerland and the south of France, living there for the rest of his life. For nearly the next fifty years he was tortured by neurasthenia and rheumatism, and at the end was almost completely blind.

1864 (16)

Six Reveries, for piano 1

867 (19)

Sonata for piano and cello (destroyed)

Feuilles volantes, for piano 1

869 (21)

Beaulieu, for piano 1

874 (26)

Suite des Valses, for orchestra

Poeme, nocturne for orchestra (parts 2 and 3 lost)

1875 (27)

Lenore, symphonic poem

1879-85 (31-7)

Roussalka, opera, destroyed

1882 (34)

Danse lente, for orchestra

1883 (35)

Aux etoiles nocturne

Benedicat vobis Dominus, motet for three voices

Duparc also wrote fourteen splendid songs.