Editing Henri Duparc (composer) (section)

== Biography ==
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 [[15th arrondissement of Paris|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 [[Camille Saint-Saëns|Saint-Saëns]] and [[Romain Bussine]] to found the [[Société nationale de musique]].

Duparc is best known for his 17 [[mélodie]]s ("art songs"), with texts by poets such as [[Charles Baudelaire|Baudelaire]], [[Théophile Gautier|Gautier]], [[Leconte de Lisle]] and [[Johann Wolfgang von Goethe|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:

{{Cquote|''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.'' <br>
(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 [[XVIIe arrondissement|17th arrondissement]] of Paris, near the rue de Levis, is named in his honor.
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<gallery style="text-align:center;" perrow=5>
Image:Henri Duparc (1858).jpg|Duparc at age 10,<br>in 1858
Image:Duparc 1870.jpg|Duparc in uniform during the Franco-Prussian War in 1870
Image:Henri_Duparc.jpg|Henri Duparc<br>in middle age
</gallery>