Paul Dukas
Encyclopedia
The Sorcerer's Apprentice (Dukas)
For the 2010 film produced by Jerry Bruckheimer, see The Sorcerer's Apprentice .The Sorcerer's Apprentice is a symphonic poem by the French composer Paul Dukas, written in 1896-97. Subtitled "Scherzo after a ballad by Goethe," the piece was inspired by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe's 1797 poem of the...
(The Sorcerer's Apprentice), the fame of which has eclipsed that of his other surviving works. Among these are an opera Ariane et Barbe-bleue
Ariane et Barbe-bleue
Ariane et Barbe-bleue is an opera in three acts by Paul Dukas. The French libretto is adapted from the symbolist play by Maurice Maeterlinck....
(Ariadne and Bluebeard), a symphony, two substantial works for solo piano, and a ballet, La Péri.
At a time when French musicians were divided into conservative and progressive factions, Dukas adhered to neither but retained the admiration of both. His compositions were influenced by composers including Beethoven
Ludwig van Beethoven
Ludwig van Beethoven was a German composer and pianist. A crucial figure in the transition between the Classical and Romantic eras in Western art music, he remains one of the most famous and influential composers of all time.Born in Bonn, then the capital of the Electorate of Cologne and part of...
, Berlioz, Franck
César Franck
César-Auguste-Jean-Guillaume-Hubert Franck was a composer, pianist, organist, and music teacher who worked in Paris during his adult life....
, d'Indy and Debussy.
In tandem with his composing career, Dukas worked as a music critic, contributing regular reviews to at least five French journals. Later in his life he was appointed professor of composition at the Conservatoire de Paris
Conservatoire de Paris
The Conservatoire de Paris is a college of music and dance founded in 1795, now situated in the avenue Jean Jaurès in the 19th arrondissement of Paris, France...
and the École Normale de Musique; his pupils included Maurice Duruflé
Maurice Duruflé
Maurice Duruflé was a French composer, organist, and pedagogue.Duruflé was born in Louviers, Eure. In 1912, he became chorister at the Rouen Cathedral Choir School, where he studied piano and organ with Jules Haelling...
, Olivier Messiaen
Olivier Messiaen
Olivier Messiaen was a French composer, organist and ornithologist, one of the major composers of the 20th century. His music is rhythmically complex ; harmonically and melodically it is based on modes of limited transposition, which he abstracted from his early compositions and improvisations...
and Joaquín Rodrigo
Joaquín Rodrigo
Joaquín Rodrigo Vidre, 1st Marquis of the Gardens of Aranjuez , commonly known as Joaquín Rodrigo, was a composer of classical music and a virtuoso pianist. Despite being nearly blind from an early age, he achieved great success...
.
Early years
Dukas was born in Paris, the second son in a Jewish family of three children. His father, Jules Dukas, was a banker, and his mother, Eugénie, was a capable pianist. When Dukas was five years old, his mother died giving birth to her third child, Marguerite-Lucie. Dukas took piano lessons, but showed no unusual musical talent until he was 14 when he began to compose while recovering from an illness. He entered the Conservatoire de ParisConservatoire de Paris
The Conservatoire de Paris is a college of music and dance founded in 1795, now situated in the avenue Jean Jaurès in the 19th arrondissement of Paris, France...
at the end of 1881, aged 16, and studied piano with Georges Mathias
Georges Mathias
Georges Amédée Saint-Clair Mathias was a French composer, pianist and teacher.Mathias was born in Paris. He studied at the Paris Conservatory with François Bazin, Auguste Barbereau, Augustin Savard and Fromental Halévy, composition with Friedrich Kalkbrenner and piano with Frédéric Chopin. He was...
, harmony with Théodore Dubois
Théodore Dubois
François-Clément Théodore Dubois was a French composer, organist and music teacher.-Biography:Théodore Dubois was born in Rosnay in Marne. He studied first under Louis Fanart and later at the Paris Conservatoire under Ambroise Thomas. He won the Prix de Rome in 1861...
and composition with Ernest Guiraud
Ernest Guiraud
Ernest Guiraud was a French composer and music teacher born in New Orleans, Louisiana. He is best known for writing the traditional orchestral recitatives used for Bizet's opera Carmen and for Offenbach's opera Les contes d'Hoffmann .- Biography :Guiraud began his schooling in Louisiana under the...
. Among his fellow students was Claude Debussy
Claude Debussy
Claude-Achille Debussy was a French composer. Along with Maurice Ravel, he was one of the most prominent figures working within the field of impressionist music, though he himself intensely disliked the term when applied to his compositions...
, with whom Dukas formed a close friendship. Two early overtures survive from this period, Goetz de Berlichingen (1883) and Le Roi Lear (1883). The manuscript of the latter was rediscovered in the 1990s and the work was performed for the first time in 1995.
Dukas won several prizes, including the second place in the Conservatoire's most prestigious award, the Prix de Rome
Prix de Rome
The Prix de Rome was a scholarship for arts students, principally of painting, sculpture, and architecture. It was created, initially for painters and sculptors, in 1663 in France during the reign of Louis XIV. It was an annual bursary for promising artists having proved their talents by...
, for his cantata Velléda in 1888. Disappointed at his failure to win the top prize, he left the Conservatoire in 1889. After compulsory military service he began a dual career as a composer and a music critic.
1890s
Dukas's career as a critic began in 1892 with a review of WagnerRichard Wagner
Wilhelm Richard Wagner was a German composer, conductor, theatre director, philosopher, music theorist, poet, essayist and writer primarily known for his operas...
's Der Ring des Nibelungen conducted by Gustav Mahler
Gustav Mahler
Gustav Mahler was a late-Romantic Austrian composer and one of the leading conductors of his generation. He was born in the village of Kalischt, Bohemia, in what was then Austria-Hungary, now Kaliště in the Czech Republic...
at Covent Garden
Royal Opera House
The Royal Opera House is an opera house and major performing arts venue in Covent Garden, central London. The large building is often referred to as simply "Covent Garden", after a previous use of the site of the opera house's original construction in 1732. It is the home of The Royal Opera, The...
in London. His review was published in La Revue Hebdomadaire; he later wrote also for Minerva, La Chronique des Arts, Gazette des Beaux-Arts
Gazette des Beaux-Arts
The Gazette des Beaux-Arts was a French art review, found in 1859 by Édouard Houssaye, with Charles Blanc as its first chief editor. It was a world reference work on art history for nearly 100 years - one other editor in chief, from 1955 to 1987, was Jean Adhémar...
and Le Courrier Musical. His Parisian debut as composer was a performance of his overture Polyeucte, written in 1891 and premiered by Charles Lamoureux
Charles Lamoureux
Charles Lamoureux was a French conductor and violinist.He was born in Bordeaux, where his father owned a café. He studied the violin with Narcisse Girard at the Paris Conservatoire, taking a premier prix in 1854. He was subsequently engaged as a violinist at the Opéra and later joined the Société...
and his Orchestre Lamoureux in January 1892. Based on a tragedy by Corneille
Pierre Corneille
Pierre Corneille was a French tragedian who was one of the three great seventeenth-century French dramatists, along with Molière and Racine...
, the work, like many French works of the period, shows the influence of Wagner, but is coherent and displays some individuality.
Although Dukas wrote a fair amount of music, he was a perfectionist and destroyed many of his pieces out of dissatisfaction with them. Only a few of his compositions remain. After Polyeucte, he began writing an opera in 1892. He wrote his own libretto, Horn et Riemenhild, but he composed only one act, "realising too late that the work's developments were more literary than musical".
The Symphony in C major
Symphony in C (Dukas)
The Symphony in C is a symphony by the French composer Paul Dukas, dedicated to Paul Vidal.The symphony was written in 1896, when Dukas was 30, and was premiered on January 3, 1897, with Paul Vidal conducting...
was composed in 1895–96, when Dukas was in his early 30s. It is dedicated to Paul Vidal
Paul Vidal
Paul Antoine Vidal was a French composer, conductor and music teacher.Paul Vidal was born in Toulouse. He studied at the conservatoires in Toulouse and in Paris, under Jules Massenet in the latter. He won the Prix de Rome in 1883, one year before Claude Debussy did...
, and had its first performance in January 1896, under the direction of the dedicatee. In a study of Dukas published towards the end of the composer's life, Irving Schwerké wrote, "The work … is an opulent expression of modernism in classical form. Its ideational luxuriance, nobility of utterance and architectural solidity mark it as one of the most conspicuous achievements of contemporaneous writing, and magnificently refute the generally prevalent notion that no French composer has ever produced a great symphony."
Like Franck
César Franck
César-Auguste-Jean-Guillaume-Hubert Franck was a composer, pianist, organist, and music teacher who worked in Paris during his adult life....
's only symphony, Dukas's is in three movements rather than the conventional four. Schwerké wrote of it:
The work received a mixed reception at its first performance. Désiré-Émile Inghelbrecht
Désiré-Emile Inghelbrecht
Désiré-Émile Inghelbrecht was a French composer, conductor and writer.- Life and career :Inghelbrecht was born in Paris, the son of a viola-player. He studied at the Paris Conservatoire and made his debut as a conductor in 1908 at the Théâtre des Arts.Inghelbrecht entered the Conservatoire aged 7...
, later known as a conductor, was a member of the orchestra at the premiere, and wrote, "the work which nowadays seems to us so lucid aroused not only the protestations of the public, but also those of the musicians of the orchestra." The symphony was better received when the Lamoureux Orchestra revived it in 1902.
The symphony was followed by another orchestral work, by far the best known of Dukas's compositions, his scherzo for orchestra, L'apprenti sorcier (The Sorcerer's Apprentice
The Sorcerer's Apprentice (Dukas)
For the 2010 film produced by Jerry Bruckheimer, see The Sorcerer's Apprentice .The Sorcerer's Apprentice is a symphonic poem by the French composer Paul Dukas, written in 1896-97. Subtitled "Scherzo after a ballad by Goethe," the piece was inspired by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe's 1797 poem of the...
) (1897), a short piece (lasting for between 10 and 12 minutes in performance) based on Goethe
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe was a German writer, pictorial artist, biologist, theoretical physicist, and polymath. He is considered the supreme genius of modern German literature. His works span the fields of poetry, drama, prose, philosophy, and science. His Faust has been called the greatest long...
's poem "Der Zauberlehrling
The Sorcerer's Apprentice
The Sorcerer's Apprentice is the English name of a poem by Goethe, Der Zauberlehrling, written in 1797. The poem is a ballad in fourteen stanzas.-Story:...
". During Dukas's lifetime The Musical Quarterly
The Musical Quarterly
The Musical Quarterly is the oldest academic journal on music in America. Originally established in 1915 by Oscar Sonneck, the journal was edited by Sonneck until his death in 1928...
commented that the world fame of the work not only overshadowed all other compositions by Dukas, but also eclipsed Goethe's original poem. The popularity of the piece became a matter of irritation to Dukas. In 2011, the Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians
Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians
The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians is an encyclopedic dictionary of music and musicians. Along with the German-language Musik in Geschichte und Gegenwart, it is the largest single reference work on Western music. The dictionary has gone through several editions since the 19th century...
observed, "The popularity of L'apprenti sorcier and the exhilarating film version of it in Disney's Fantasia
Fantasia (film)
Fantasia is a 1940 American animated film produced by Walt Disney and released by Walt Disney Productions. The third feature in the Walt Disney Animated Classics series, the film consists of eight animated segments set to pieces of classical music conducted by Leopold Stokowski, seven of which are...
possibly hindered a fuller understanding of Dukas, as that single work is far better known than its composer."
20th century works
In the decade after L'apprenti sorcier, Dukas completed two complex and technically demanding large-scale works for solo piano: the Piano SonataPiano Sonata (Dukas)
The Piano Sonata in E-flat minor is a musical work composed by Paul Dukas between 1899 and 1900, and published in 1901.The work has four movements:*I Modérément vif *II Calme – un peu lent – très soutenu*III Vivement – avec légèreté...
(1901), dedicated to Saint-Saëns
Camille Saint-Saëns
Charles-Camille Saint-Saëns was a French Late-Romantic composer, organist, conductor, and pianist. He is known especially for The Carnival of the Animals, Danse macabre, Samson and Delilah, Piano Concerto No. 2, Cello Concerto No. 1, Havanaise, Introduction and Rondo Capriccioso, and his Symphony...
, and Variations, Interlude and Finale on a Theme by Rameau
Variations, Interlude and Finale on a Theme by Rameau
The Variations, Interlude and Finale on a Theme by Rameau were composed by Paul Dukas between 1899 and 1902...
(1902). In Dukas's piano works critics have discerned the influence of Beethoven, or, "Beethoven as he was interpreted to the French mind by César Franck". Lockspeiser describes the Rameau Variations as more developed and assured ... Dukas infuses the conventional form with a new and powerful spirit."
In 1899 Dukas turned once again to operatic composition. His second attempt, L'arbre de science, was abandoned, incomplete, but in the same year he began work on his one completed opera, Ariane et Barbe-bleue
Ariane et Barbe-bleue
Ariane et Barbe-bleue is an opera in three acts by Paul Dukas. The French libretto is adapted from the symbolist play by Maurice Maeterlinck....
(Ariadne and Bluebeard). The work is a setting of a libretto by Maurice Maeterlinck
Maurice Maeterlinck
Maurice Polydore Marie Bernard Maeterlinck, also called Comte Maeterlinck from 1932, was a Belgian playwright, poet, and essayist who wrote in French. He was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1911. The main themes in his work are death and the meaning of life...
. The author had intended the libretto to be set by Grieg
Edvard Grieg
Edvard Hagerup Grieg was a Norwegian composer and pianist. He is best known for his Piano Concerto in A minor, for his incidental music to Henrik Ibsen's play Peer Gynt , and for his collection of piano miniatures Lyric Pieces.-Biography:Edvard Hagerup Grieg was born in...
but in 1899 he offered it to Dukas. Dukas worked on it for seven years and it was produced at the Opéra-Comique
Opéra-Comique
The Opéra-Comique is a Parisian opera company, which was founded around 1714 by some of the popular theatres of the Parisian fairs. In 1762 the company was merged with, and for a time took the name of its chief rival the Comédie-Italienne at the Hôtel de Bourgogne, and was also called the...
in 1907. The opera has often been compared to Debussy's Pelléas et Mélisande
Pelléas et Mélisande (opera)
Pelléas et Mélisande is an opera in five acts with music by Claude Debussy. The French libretto was adapted from Maurice Maeterlinck's Symbolist play Pelléas et Mélisande...
which was first performed while Dukas was writing Ariane et Barbe-bleue. Not only are both works settings of Maeterlinck, but there are musical similarities; Dukas even quotes from the Debussy work in his score. Although it won considerable praise, its success was overshadowed by the Paris premiere of Richard Strauss
Richard Strauss
Richard Georg Strauss was a leading German composer of the late Romantic and early modern eras. He is known for his operas, which include Der Rosenkavalier and Salome; his Lieder, especially his Four Last Songs; and his tone poems and orchestral works, such as Death and Transfiguration, Till...
's sensational opera Salome
Salome (opera)
Salome is an opera in one act by Richard Strauss to a German libretto by the composer, based on Hedwig Lachmann’s German translation of the French play Salomé by Oscar Wilde. Strauss dedicated the opera to his friend Sir Edgar Speyer....
at much the same time. None the less, within a short time of its premiere, Dukas's opera was produced in Vienna, where it aroused much interest in Schoenberg
Arnold Schoenberg
Arnold Schoenberg was an Austrian composer, associated with the expressionist movement in German poetry and art, and leader of the Second Viennese School...
's circle, and in Frankfurt, Milan and New York. It did not maintain a regular place in the repertory, despite the advocacy of Arturo Toscanini
Arturo Toscanini
Arturo Toscanini was an Italian conductor. One of the most acclaimed musicians of the late 19th and 20th century, he was renowned for his intensity, his perfectionism, his ear for orchestral detail and sonority, and his photographic memory...
, who conducted it in New York three years in succession, and Sir Thomas Beecham
Thomas Beecham
Sir Thomas Beecham, 2nd Baronet CH was an English conductor and impresario best known for his association with the London Philharmonic and the Royal Philharmonic orchestras. He was also closely associated with the Liverpool Philharmonic and Hallé orchestras...
, who pronounced it "one of the finest lyrical dramas of our time," and staged it at Covent Garden
Royal Opera House
The Royal Opera House is an opera house and major performing arts venue in Covent Garden, central London. The large building is often referred to as simply "Covent Garden", after a previous use of the site of the opera house's original construction in 1732. It is the home of The Royal Opera, The...
in 1937. Interest in it revived in the 1990s, with productions in Paris (Théâtre du Châtelet
Théâtre du Châtelet
The Théâtre du Châtelet is a theatre and opera house, located in the place du Châtelet in the 1st arrondissement of Paris, France.One of two theatres built on the site of a châtelet, a small castle or fortress, it was designed by Gabriel Davioud at the request of Baron Haussmann between 1860 and...
, 1990) and Hamburg (Staatsoper
Hamburg State Opera
The Hamburg State Opera is one of the leading opera companies in Germany.Opera in Hamburg dates back to 2 January 1678 when the "Opern-Theatrum" was inaugurated with a performance of a biblical Singspiel by Johann Theile...
, 1997), and at the Opéra Bastille
Opéra Bastille
L'Opéra Bastille ' is a modern opera house in Paris, France. It is the home base of the Opéra national de Paris and was designed to replace the Palais Garnier, which is nowadays mainly used for ballet performances....
in Paris in 2007.
Dukas's last major work was the sumptuous oriental ballet
Ballet
Ballet is a type of performance dance, that originated in the Italian Renaissance courts of the 15th century, and which was further developed in France and Russia as a concert dance form. The early portions preceded the invention of the proscenium stage and were presented in large chambers with...
La Péri (1912). Described by the composer as a "poème dansé" it depicts a young Persian prince who travels to the ends of the Earth in a quest to find the lotus flower of immortality, coming across its guardian, the Péri (fairy). Because of the very quiet opening pages of the ballet score, the composer added a brief "Fanfare pour précéder La Peri" which gave the typically noisy audiences of the day time to settle in their seats before the work proper began. La Péri was written for the Russian-French dancer Natalia Trouhanova, who starred in the first performance at the Châtelet in 1912. Diaghilev
Sergei Diaghilev
Sergei Pavlovich Diaghilev , usually referred to outside of Russia as Serge, was a Russian art critic, patron, ballet impresario and founder of the Ballets Russes, from which many famous dancers and choreographers would arise.-Early life and career:...
planned a production with his Ballets Russes
Ballets Russes
The Ballets Russes was an itinerant ballet company from Russia which performed between 1909 and 1929 in many countries. Directed by Sergei Diaghilev, it is regarded as the greatest ballet company of the 20th century. Many of its dancers originated from the Imperial Ballet of Saint Petersburg...
but the production did not take place; the company's choreographer Fokine
Michel Fokine
Michel Fokine was a groundbreaking Russian choreographer and dancer.-Biography:...
staged L'apprenti sorcier as a ballet in 1916.
In 1916, Dukas married Suzanne Pereyra, who was of Portuguese descent. They had one child, a daughter Adrienne-Thérèse, born in December 1919.
Later years
Charles-Marie Widor
Charles-Marie Jean Albert Widor was a French organist, composer and teacher.-Life:Widor was born in Lyon, to a family of organ builders, and initially studied music there with his father, François-Charles Widor, titular organist of Saint-François-de-Sales from 1838 to 1889...
retired as professor of composition at the Paris Conservatoire in 1927, Dukas was appointed in his place. He also taught at the École Normale de Musique in Paris. His many students included Jehan Alain
Jehan Alain
Jehan Ariste Alain was a French organist and composer.-Biography:Alain was born in Saint-Germain-en-Laye in the western suburbs of Paris, into a family of musicians. His father, Albert Alain was an enthusiastic organist, composer and organ-builder who had studied with Alexandre Guilmant and Louis...
, Elsa Barraine
Elsa Barraine
Elsa Jacqueline Barraine was a French composer. Born in Paris, she was the daughter of cellist Alfred Barraine. She studied with Jean Gallon , Abel Estyle , George Caussade , and Paul Dukas at the Conservatoire de Paris...
, Francis Chagrin
Francis Chagrin
Francis Chagrin ,) was a composer of film scores and popular orchestral music, as well as a conductor.- Career :...
, Carlos Chávez
Carlos Chávez
Carlos Antonio de Padua Chávez y Ramírez was a Mexican composer, conductor, music theorist, educator, journalist, and founder and director of the Mexican Symphonic Orchestra. He was influenced by native Mexican cultures. Of his six Symphonies, his Symphony No...
, Maurice Duruflé
Maurice Duruflé
Maurice Duruflé was a French composer, organist, and pedagogue.Duruflé was born in Louviers, Eure. In 1912, he became chorister at the Rouen Cathedral Choir School, where he studied piano and organ with Jules Haelling...
, Georges Hugon
Georges Hugon
Georges Hugon was a French composer. He is the father of actress Sophie Daumier. His compositional output includes several chamber works, the ballet La Reine de Saba , two completed symphonies , and the unfinished symphony Prometheus.Born in Paris, he studied with Georges Caussade, Paul...
, Jean Langlais
Jean Langlais
Jean Langlais was a French composer of modern classical music, organist, and improviser.- Biography :Jean Langlais was born in La Fontenelle , a small village near Mont St Michel, France...
, Olivier Messiaen
Olivier Messiaen
Olivier Messiaen was a French composer, organist and ornithologist, one of the major composers of the 20th century. His music is rhythmically complex ; harmonically and melodically it is based on modes of limited transposition, which he abstracted from his early compositions and improvisations...
, Manuel Ponce, Joaquín Rodrigo
Joaquín Rodrigo
Joaquín Rodrigo Vidre, 1st Marquis of the Gardens of Aranjuez , commonly known as Joaquín Rodrigo, was a composer of classical music and a virtuoso pianist. Despite being nearly blind from an early age, he achieved great success...
, David Van Vactor
David Van Vactor
David Van Vactor was an American composer of contemporary classical music.He was born in Plymouth, Indiana, and received Bachelor of Music and Master of Music degrees from Northwestern University...
and Xian Xinghai
Xian Xinghai
Xian Xinghai was one of the earliest generation of Chinese composers influenced by western classical music and has influenced generations of Chinese musicians...
. As a teacher he was conservative but always encouraging of talent, telling one student, "It's obvious that you really love music. Always remember that it should be written from the heart and not with the head." He said his method of teaching was "to help young musicians to express themselves in accordance with their own natures. Music necessarily has to express something; it is also obliged to express somebody, namely, its composer." Grove observes that his wide knowledge of the history of European music, and his editorial work on Rameau, Scarlatti and Beethoven, gave him "particular authority in teaching historical styles".
After La Péri, Dukas completed no new large-scale compositions, although, as with his contemporary Jean Sibelius
Jean Sibelius
Jean Sibelius was a Finnish composer of the later Romantic period whose music played an important role in the formation of the Finnish national identity. His mastery of the orchestra has been described as "prodigious."...
, there were frequent reports of major work in hand. After several years of silence, in 1920 he produced a tribute to his friend Debussy in the form of La plainte, au loin, du faune... for piano, which was followed by Amours, a setting of a sonnet by Pierre de Ronsard
Pierre de Ronsard
Pierre de Ronsard was a French poet and "prince of poets" .-Early life:...
, for voice and piano, published in 1924 to mark the five hundredth anniversary of the poet's birth. Shortly before his death he had been working on a symphonic poem inspired by Shakespeare's
William Shakespeare
William Shakespeare was an English poet and playwright, widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and the world's pre-eminent dramatist. He is often called England's national poet and the "Bard of Avon"...
The Tempest
The Tempest
The Tempest is a play by William Shakespeare, believed to have been written in 1610–11, and thought by many critics to be the last play that Shakespeare wrote alone. It is set on a remote island, where Prospero, the exiled Duke of Milan, plots to restore his daughter Miranda to her rightful place,...
, a play of which he had made a French translation in 1918 with an operatic version in mind.
In the last year of his life Dukas was elected to membership of the Académie des Beaux-Arts
Académie des beaux-arts
The Académie des Beaux-Arts is a French learned society. It is one of the five academies of the Institut de France.It was created in 1795 as the merger of the:* Académie de peinture et de sculpture...
. Though adhering to neither the progressive or conservative factions among French musicians of the era, Dukas had the friendship and respect of both. In 1920, Vincent d'Indy
Vincent d'Indy
Vincent d'Indy was a French composer and teacher.-Life:Paul Marie Théodore Vincent d'Indy was born in Paris into an aristocratic family of royalist and Catholic persuasion. He had piano lessons from an early age from his paternal grandmother, who passed him on to Antoine François Marmontel and...
published a study of Dukas's music; Debussy remained a life-long friend, though feeling that Dukas's music was not French enough; Saint-Saëns worked with Dukas to complete an unfinished opera by Guiraud, and they were both engaged in the rediscovery and editing of the works of Rameau; Fauré
Gabriel Fauré
Gabriel Urbain Fauré was a French composer, organist, pianist and teacher. He was one of the foremost French composers of his generation, and his musical style influenced many 20th century composers...
dedicated his Second Piano Quintet to Dukas in 1921.
Dukas died in Paris in 1935, aged 69. He was cremated and his ashes were placed in the columbarium
Columbarium
A columbarium is a place for the respectful and usually public storage of cinerary urns . The term comes from the Latin columba and originally referred to compartmentalized housing for doves and pigeons .The Columbarium of Pomponius Hylas is a particularly fine ancient Roman example, rich in...
at Père Lachaise Cemetery
Père Lachaise Cemetery
Père Lachaise Cemetery is the largest cemetery in the city of Paris, France , though there are larger cemeteries in the city's suburbs.Père Lachaise is in the 20th arrondissement, and is reputed to be the world's most-visited cemetery, attracting hundreds of thousands of visitors annually to the...
in Paris.
Published by the composer
- Polyeucte, overture for orchestra (1891)
- Symphony in CSymphony in C (Dukas)The Symphony in C is a symphony by the French composer Paul Dukas, dedicated to Paul Vidal.The symphony was written in 1896, when Dukas was 30, and was premiered on January 3, 1897, with Paul Vidal conducting...
(1895–6) - L'apprenti sorcierThe Sorcerer's Apprentice (Dukas)For the 2010 film produced by Jerry Bruckheimer, see The Sorcerer's Apprentice .The Sorcerer's Apprentice is a symphonic poem by the French composer Paul Dukas, written in 1896-97. Subtitled "Scherzo after a ballad by Goethe," the piece was inspired by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe's 1797 poem of the...
("The Sorcerer's Apprentice"), for orchestra (1897) - Piano Sonata in E-flat minorPiano Sonata (Dukas)The Piano Sonata in E-flat minor is a musical work composed by Paul Dukas between 1899 and 1900, and published in 1901.The work has four movements:*I Modérément vif *II Calme – un peu lent – très soutenu*III Vivement – avec légèreté...
(1899–1900) - Variations, Interlude and Finale on a Theme by RameauVariations, Interlude and Finale on a Theme by RameauThe Variations, Interlude and Finale on a Theme by Rameau were composed by Paul Dukas between 1899 and 1902...
, for piano (c.1899–1902) - Ariane et Barbe-bleueAriane et Barbe-bleueAriane et Barbe-bleue is an opera in three acts by Paul Dukas. The French libretto is adapted from the symbolist play by Maurice Maeterlinck....
, opera (1899–1907) - Villanelle, for horn and piano (1906)
- Prélude élégiaque sur le nom de Haydn, for piano (1909)
- Vocalise-étude (alla gitana), for voice and piano (1909)
- La Péri, ballet (poème dansé) (1911; later supplemented with Fanfare pour précéder La Péri (1912))
- La plainte, au loin, du faune..., for piano (1920)
- Amours, sonnet for voice and piano (1924)
- Allegro, for piano (1925)
- Modéré, for piano (?) (1933; published posthumously in 1936)
Early unpublished works
- Air de Clytemnestre, for voice and small orchestra (1882)
- Goetz de Berlichingen, overture for orchestra (1883)
- Le roi Lear, for orchestra (1883)
- Chanson de Barberine, for soprano and orchestra (1884)
- La fête des Myrthes, for choir and orchestra (1884)
- L'ondine et le pêcheur, for soprano and orchestra (1884)
- Endymion, cantata for three solo voices and orchestra (1885)
- Introduction au poème "Les Caresses", for piano (1885)
- La vision de Saül, cantata for three solo voices and orchestra (1886)
- La fleur, for choir and orchestra (1887)
- Fugue (1888)
- Hymne au soleil, for choir and orchestra (1888)
- Vélléda, cantata for three solo voices and orchestra (1888)
- Sémélé, cantata for three solo voices and orchestra (1889)
Destroyed and projected works
- Horn et Riemenhild, opera (1892)
- L'arbre de science, opera (1899)
- Le fil de parque, symphonic poem (c.1908)
- Le nouveau monde, opera (c.1908–1910)
- Le sang de Méduse, ballet (1912)
- Symphony No. 2 (after 1912)
- Violin Sonata (after 1912)
- La tempête, opera (c.1918)
- Variations choréographiques, ballet (1930)
- An untitled orchestral work for Boston Symphonic Orchestra (1932)
External links
- Free scores at the Mutopia ProjectMutopia projectThe Mutopia Project is a volunteer-run effort to create a library of free content sheet music, in a way similar to Project Gutenberg's library of public domain books.The music is reproduced from old scores that are out of copyright...