Eugène Marie Henri Fouques Duparc (21 January 1848 – 12 February 1933) was a French

composer A composer is a person who writes music. The term is especially used to indicate composers of Western classical music, or those who are composers by occupation. Many composers are, or were, also skilled performers of music. Etymology and Def ...

of the late

Romantic period Romanticism (also known as the Romantic movement or Romantic era) was an artistic, literary, musical, and intellectual movement that originated in Europe towards the end of the 18th century, and in most areas was at its peak in the approximate ...

Biography

Son of Charles Fouques-Duparc and Amélie de Guaita. Henri Fouques-Duparc was born in

Paris Paris () is the capital and most populous city of France, with an estimated population of 2,165,423 residents in 2019 in an area of more than 105 km² (41 sq mi), making it the 30th most densely populated city in the world in 2020. Si ...

. He studied piano with

César Franck César-Auguste Jean-Guillaume Hubert Franck (; 10 December 1822 – 8 November 1890) was a French Romantic composer, pianist, organist, and music teacher born in modern-day Belgium. He was born in Liège (which at the time of his birth was pa ...

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 Romain Bussine (4 November 1830 – 20 December 1899) was a French voice teacher, singer, translator and poet active in the second half of the 19th century. Career He was born in Paris; and from the late 1860s until his death Bussine was pr ...

to found the

Société Nationale de Musique Lactalis is a French multinational dairy products corporation, owned by the Besnier family and based in Laval, Mayenne, France. The company's former name was Besnier SA. Lactalis is the largest dairy products group in the world, and is the sec ...

. Duparc is best known for his 17

mélodie A ''mélodie'' () is a form of French art song, arising in the mid-19th century. It is comparable to the German ''Lied''. A ''chanson'', by contrast, is a folk or popular French song. The literal meaning of the word in the French language is "melod ...

s ("art songs"), with texts by poets such as

Baudelaire Charles Pierre Baudelaire (, ; ; 9 April 1821 – 31 August 1867) was a French poet who also produced notable work as an essayist and art critic. His poems exhibit mastery in the handling of rhyme and rhythm, contain an exoticism inherited fro ...

, Gautier,

Leconte de Lisle Charles Marie René Leconte de Lisle (; 22 October 1818 – 17 July 1894) was a French poet of the Parnassian movement. He is traditionally known by his surname only, Leconte de Lisle''. Biography Leconte de Lisle was born on the French overseas ...

and

Goethe Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (28 August 1749 – 22 March 1832) was a German poet, playwright, novelist, scientist, statesman, theatre director, and critic. His works include plays, poetry, literature, and aesthetic criticism, as well as tr ...

. A mental illness, diagnosed at the time as "

neurasthenia Neurasthenia (from the Ancient Greek νεῦρον ''neuron'' "nerve" and ἀσθενής ''asthenés'' "weak") is a term that was first used at least as early as 1829 for a mechanical weakness of the nerves and became a major diagnosis in North A ...

", 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: He spent most of the rest of his life in

La Tour-de-Peilz La Tour-de-Peilz () is a municipality in Riviera-Pays-d'Enhaut District in the canton of Vaud in Switzerland. The city is located on Lake Geneva between Montreux and Vevey (their agglomeration counting some 80,000 inhabitants). History In th ...

, near

Vevey Vevey (; frp, Vevê; german: label=former German, Vivis) is a town in Switzerland in the canton of Vaud, on the north shore of Lake Geneva, near Lausanne. The German name Vivis is no longer commonly used. It was the seat of the district of ...

Switzerland ). Swiss law does not designate a ''capital'' as such, but the federal parliament and government are installed in Bern, while other federal institutions, such as the federal courts, are in other cities (Bellinzona, Lausanne, Luzern, Neuchâtel ...

, and died in Mont-de-Marsan, in southwestern France, at age 85. Duparc is buried at

Père Lachaise Cemetery Père Lachaise Cemetery (french: Cimetière du Père-Lachaise ; formerly , "East Cemetery") is the largest cemetery in Paris, France (). With more than 3.5 million visitors annually, it is the most visited necropolis in the world. Notable figure ...

in Paris. A square in the

17th arrondissement The 17th arrondissement of Paris (''XVIIe arrondissement'') is one of the 20 arrondissements of the capital city of France. In spoken French, it is referred to as ''le dix-septième'' (; "the seventeenth"). The arrondissement, known as Batignoll ...

of Paris, near the rue de Levis, is named in his honor. Image:Henri Duparc (1858).jpg, Duparc at age 10,
in 1858 Image:Duparc 1870.jpg, Duparc in uniform during the Franco-Prussian War in 1870 Image:Henri_Duparc.jpg, Henri Duparc
in middle age

Works

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.

External links

* * {{DEFAULTSORT:Duparc, Henri 1848 births 1933 deaths 19th-century classical composers 19th-century French composers 19th-century French male musicians 20th-century classical composers 20th-century French composers 20th-century French male musicians Burials at Père Lachaise Cemetery French male classical composers French Romantic composers Pupils of César Franck