Henri Duparc (composer)

French composer (1848–1933)

This article is about the composer. For the film director, see Henri Duparc (director).

Henri Duparc in 1880

Eugène Marie Henri Fouques Duparc (21 January 1848 - 12 February 1933) was a French composer of the late Romantic period.

## Biography

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Son of Charles Fouques-Duparc and Amélie de Guaita, Henri Fouques-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 MacSwiney, from Scotland, on 9 November 1871. In the same year, he joined Saint-Saëns and Romain Bussine to found the Société nationale de musique.

Duparc is best known for his 17 mélodies ("art songs"), with texts by poets such as Baudelaire, Gautier, Leconte de Lisle and Goethe.

A mental illness, diagnosed at the time as "neurasthenia", caused him abruptly to cease composing at age 37, in 1885. He devoted himself to his family and his other passions, drawing and painting. But increasing vision loss after the turn of the century eventually led to total 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, dated 19 January 1922, to the composer Jean Cras, his close friend, Duparc wrote:

> 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 for 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 the rest of his life in La Tour-de-Peilz, near Vevey, Switzerland, and died in Mont-de-Marsan, in southwestern 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.

* Duparc at age 10,
in 1858

* Duparc in uniform during the Franco-Prussian War in 1870

* Henri Duparc
in middle age

## Works

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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)
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 | Published as: Op. 2, no. 2. Text by Gabriel Marc. | 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’aurore | Part lost, only: I. Aux étoiles is extant.
Premiered in Paris on 11 April 1874 at the Société Nationale de Musique Moderne. | Orchestral work
1874 | Elégie | Text by Ellen MacSwiney (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
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 Русалка (Rusalka), an unfinished dramatic poem by Alexander Pushkin. Destroyed except for "Absence," republished as "Au pays où se fait la guerre". | Opera in 3 acts
1880 | Sérénade florentine | Text by Jean Lahor. Released 1882. | Voice & piano
1882 | Benedicat vobis Dominus | Motet for three mixed voices and organ (or piano). | Choral music
1883 | Lamento | Text by Théophile Gautier. | Voice & piano
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 543 |  | Two 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 615 | Private collection of Ernest Ansermet | Two pianos

## Bibliography

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### Writings by Henri Duparc (in French)

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* 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)

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* 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)

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* Northcote, S. The Songs of Henri Duparc. London: D. Dobson, 1949. 124 pp.
* Van 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)

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* 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

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Wikimedia Commons has media related to Henri Duparc.

* Free scores by Henri Duparc (composer) at the International Music Score Library Project (IMSLP)
* Free scores by Henri Duparc (composer) in the Choral Public Domain Library (ChoralWiki)

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