Duparc - Lénore (1/2) Symphonic Poem after Bürger

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

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 November 9, 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 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. He destroyed most of his music, leaving fewer than 40 works to posterity.

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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