- Henri Duparc (composer)
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This article is about the composer. For the film director, see Henri Duparc (director).
Henri Duparc in 1880.
Henri Duparc (Eugène Marie Henri Fouques Duparc) (21 January 1848 – 12 February 1933) was a French composer of the late Romantic period.
Contents
Biography
Duparc was born in Paris. He studied piano with César Franck at the Jesuit College in the Vaugirard district and became one of his first composition pupils. Following military service in the Franco-Prussian War, he married Ellen MacSwinney, from Scotland, on 9 November 1871. In the same year, he joined with Saint-Saëns and Romain Bussine to found the Société Nationale de Musique Moderne.
Duparc is best known for his seventeen mélodies ("art songs") with texts by poets such as Baudelaire, Gautier, Leconte de Lisle, and Goethe. These pieces are considered by many to be among the greatest compositions by any composer in this form.
A mental illness, called "neurasthenia", caused him to abruptly cease composing at age 37, in 1885. He devoted himself to his family and his other passions, drawing and painting. However, he began losing his vision after the turn of the century, which eventually led to complete blindness. He destroyed most of his music, leaving fewer than 40 works to posterity. In a poignant letter about the destruction of his incomplete opera written on 19 January 1922 to the composer Jean Cras, his close friend, Duparc states:
“ Après avoir vécu 25 ans dans un splendide rêve, toute idée de représentation m'était – je vous le répète – devenue odieuse. L'autre motif de cette destruction, que je ne regrette pas, c'est la complète transformation morale que Dieu a opéré en moi il y a 20 ans et qui en une seule minute a abolie toute ma vie passée. Dès lors, la Roussalka n'ayant aucun rapport avec ma vie nouvelle ne devait plus exister.
(Having lived 25 years in a splendid dream, the whole idea of [musical] representation has become – I repeat to you – repugnant. The other reason for this destruction, which I do not regret, was the complete moral transformation that God imposed on me 20 years ago and which, in a single minute, obliterated all of my past life. Since then, [my opera] Roussalka, not having any connection with my new life, should no longer exist.)
” He spent most of his remaining life in La Tour-de-Peilz, near Vevey, Switzerland and died in Mont-de-Marsan, in southwest France, at age 85.
Duparc is buried at Père Lachaise Cemetery in Paris. A square in the 17th arrondissement of Paris, near the rue de Levis, is named in his honor.
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Duparc at age 10,
in 1858. -
Duparc in uniform during the Franco-Prussian War in 1870.
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Henri Duparc
in middle age.
Works
Catalogue of works by Henri Duparc Year Composition Notes Type of Work 1863-65 Six rêveries, pour piano Printed, but unpublished. Private collection of Mme. d'Armagnac, granddaughter of Duparc. Piano solo 1867 Sonate pour violoncelle et piano Premiered in 1948. Private collection of Mme. d'Armagnac, granddaughter of Duparc. Cello & piano 1867-69 Feuilles volantes, pour piano Piano solo 1868 Chanson triste Published as: Op. 2, no. 4. Text by Jean Lahor. Voice & piano (Orchestrated, 1912) 1868 Lamento Text by Théophile Gautier. Voice & piano 1869 Le galop Published as: Op. 2, no. 5. Text by Sully Prudhomme. (Released in 1948). Voice & piano 1869 Romance de Mignon Published as: Op. 2, no. 3. Text by Victor Wilder, based on « Kennst du das Land » by Goethe). Voice & piano 1869 Sérénade florentine Published as: Op. 2, no. 2. Text by Jean Lahor. Voice & piano 1869 Soupir Published as: Op. 2, no. 1. Text by Sully Prudhomme. Revised 1902. Voice & piano 1869 Cinq mélodies, op. 2 Voice & piano 1869 Beaulieu, pour piano Private collection of Mme. d'Armagnac, granddaughter of Duparc. Piano solo 1869-70 Au pays où se fait la guerre Text by Théophile Gautier. (Original title: Absence). Definitive version, 1911-13. Voice & piano (Orchestrated, 1876) 1870 L'Invitation au voyage Text by Charles Baudelaire. Released in 1872. Voice & piano (Orchestrated, 1892-95) 1871 La fuite, duo pour soprano et ténor avec piano Published as: Op. 2, no. 6. Duet for voice & piano 1871 La vague et la cloche Text by François Coppée. Released in 1873. Voice & piano (Orchestrated) 1872 Suite d'orchestre (Lost). Orchestral suite 1872-82 Phidylé Text by Leconte de Lisle. Released in 1889 Voice & piano (Orchestrated, 1891-92) 1873 Laendler, suite de valses pour orchestre (Destroyed). Orchestral suite 1873 Laendler (version for two pianos) Two pianos 1874 Poème nocturne :
I. Aux étoiles - II. Lutins et follets - III. Duo: L’aurorePart lost, only: I. Aux étoiles is extant.
Premiered in Paris on April 11, 1874 at the Société Nationale de Musique Moderne.Orchestral work 1874 Elégie Text by Ellen MacSwinny(?) (wife of Duparc) after Thomas Moore. Voice & piano 1874 Extase Text by Jean Lahor. Released 1882. Revised 1884. Voice & piano 1875 Lénore Based on the ballad of the same name by Gottfried August Bürger. Symphonic poem 1875 Lénore (version for two pianos) transcription for 2 pianos (1884) by Camille Saint-Saëns Two pianos 1876-84 La vie anterieure Text by Charles Baudelaire. Voice & piano (Orchestrated, 1911-12) 1877 Suite pour le piano (Lost). Piano solo 1879 Le manoir de Rosemonde Text by Robert de Bonnières Voice & piano (Orchestrated, 1912) 1879-95 Roussalka, opéra en trois actes Unfinished. Based on Русалки (Rusalka), a dramatic poem by Alexander Pushkin. (Destroyed, except for "Absence" republished as "Au pay où se fait la guerre"). Opera in 3 acts 1880 Sérénade Text by Gabriel Marc. Released 1882. Voice & piano 1882 Benedicat vobis Dominus Motet for three mixed voices and organ (or piano). Choral music 1883 Testament Text by Paul Armand Silvestre. Released in 1898. Voice & piano (Orchestrated, 1900-02) 1884 La vie antérieure Text by Charles Baudelaire. Voice & piano (Orchestrated, 1911-13) 1886 Recueillement Unfinished. (Destroyed). Voice & piano? 1892 Danse lente Extract from Roussalka. Copied by Ernest Ansermet. Preserved by Éditions Salabert. Orchestral work 1903 Transcription of two works for organ by J.S. Bach:
Prélude and fugue in E minor ("Cathedral"), BWV 513
Prélude and fugue in A minor ("The Great"), BWV 543Two pianos 1908 Transcription of six organ works by César Franck Two pianos 1910 Aux étoiles, pour piano Also: version for piano four hands, & version for organ. Revised 1911. Piano solo 1911 Aux étoiles Entr'acte for an unpublished drama. Orchestral work (n.d.) Transcription of a work for organ by J.S. Bach:
Chorale Prélude and Fugue: In dir ist Freude, BWV 615Private collection of Ernest Ansermet Two pianos Bibliography
Writings by Henri Duparc (in French)
- César Franck pendant le Siège de Paris, in « Revue musicale », Paris, December 1922.
- Souvenirs de la Société Nationale, in « Revue de la Société internationale de Musique », Paris, December 1912.
Letters (in French)
- Lettre à Chausson, in « Revue musicale », December 1925.
- Duparc Henri : Une Amitié mystique, d'après ses lettres à Francis Jammes. (Preface and comments by G. Ferchault). Mercure de France, Paris, 1944.
- Gérard, Y. (Ed.). Lettres de Henri Duparc à Ernest Chausson, in « Revue de Musicologie » (N° 38) 1956, p. 125.
- Sérieyx, M.-L. (Ed.). Vincent d’Indy, Henri Duparc, Albert Roussel : lettres à Auguste Sérieyx. Lausanne, 1961.
Monographs on Duparc (in French)
- Northcote, S. The Songs of Henri Duparc. London: D. Dobson, 1949. 124 pp.
- Von der Elst, N. Henri Duparc : l’homme et son oeuvre. (Thesis). Paris: Université de Paris, 1972, & Utrecht, 1972.
- Fabre, M. L'image de Henri Duparc dans sa correspondence avec Jean Cras. 1973.
Other articles and writings about Duparc (in French)
- Fellot, H. Lieder français : Henri Duparc, in « Revue Musicale de Lyon ». Lyon, 30 March 1904.
- Chantavoine, J. Henri Duparc, in « La Revue Hebdomadaire », Paris, 5 May 1906.
- Aubry, G.-J. Henri Duparc, in « La vie musicale de Lausanne », Lausanne, 1 February 1908.
- Jammes, Francis. L'Amour, les Muses et la Chasse, in « Mercure de France », Paris, 1922, p. 172 et al.
- Fauré, Gabriel. Opinions musicales. Paris: Rieder, 1930.
- Imbert, M. Henri Duparc, in « La Petite Maîtrise », Schola Cantorum de París, March 1933.
- Ansermet, Ernest. Un émouvant témoignage sur la destinée d'Henri Duparc, in « Revue Musicale », Paris, April 1933.
- Bréville, P. Henri Fouques Duparc 1848-1933, in « La Musique Française », Paris, May 1933.
- Merle, F. Psychologie et Pathologie d'un artiste: Henri Duparc. Bordeaux: Imprimerie de l'Université (Bordeaux), 1933.
- Oulmont, C. Henri Duparc, ou de L'Invitation au Voyage à la Vie éternelle. Paris: Desclée de Brouwer & Cie, 1935.
- Oulmont, C. Un Duparc inconnu, in « Revue musicale », Paris, July-August 1935.
- Stricker, R. Henri Duparc et ses mélodies. (Thesis). Paris: Conservatoire national de musique, 1961.
- Rigault, J.-L. Les mélodies de Duparc, Autour de la mélodie française. Rouen, 1987, p. 71-86.
- Stricker, R. Les mélodies de Duparc. Arles, 1996.
External links
Categories:- 20th-century classical composers
- French composers
- Romantic composers
- 1848 births
- 1933 deaths
- Burials at Père Lachaise Cemetery
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