Biography

Albert Dupuis was born in Verviers

Verviers

Verviers is a Walloon city and municipality located in the Belgian province of Liège. The Verviers municipality includes the old communes of Ensival, Lambermont, Petit-Rechain, Stembert, and Heusy...

 on 1 March 1877.
The son of a music teacher, Dupuis studied violin, piano and flute from the age of 8, at the conservatory in his hometown, Verviers, also home of Guillaume Lekeu

Guillaume Lekeu

Guillaume Lekeu was a Belgian composer of classical music.- Life :Lekeu, who was born in Verviers, Belgium, took his first lessons at the conservatoire in that city. In 1879, his parents moved to Poitiers, France. There, he finished school while he continued his music studies autodidactically...

 and Henri Vieuxtemps

Henri Vieuxtemps

Henri François Joseph Vieuxtemps was a Belgian composer and violinist. He occupies an important place in the history of the violin as a prominent exponent of the Franco-Belgian violin school during the mid-19th century....

. Orphaned at age 15, he worked as a tutor at the Grand Theater of Verviers while pursuing his studies, including from Francis Duyzings for harmony. A brilliant and precocious student, he composed his first comic opera at age 18.

Noticed by 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...

 in 1897, Dupuis was invited to work with him at the Schola Cantorum

Schola Cantorum

The Schola Cantorum de Paris is a private music school in Paris. It was founded in 1894 by Charles Bordes, Alexandre Guilmant and Vincent d'Indy as a counterbalance to the Paris Conservatoire's emphasis on opera...

 in Paris. A time coach of the choir of Saint-Eustache

Saint-Eustache

Saint-Eustache may refer to:* Eustace of Luxeuil, monk* Saint Eustace , a legendary Christian martyr who allegedly lived in the 2nd century AD* Saint-Eustache, Quebec, a city in western Quebec, Canada...

, he returned to Verviers in 1900 to marry. In 1903 he won the Prix de Rome Belgium

Prix de Rome (Belgium)

The Belgian Prix de Rome is an award for young artists, created in 1832, following the example of the original French Prix de Rome. The Royal Academy of Fine Arts Antwerp organised the prize until 1920, when the national government took over. The first prize is also sometimes called the Grand Prix...

 (not to be confused with the French Prix de Rome) with his cantata La Chanson d'Halewyn and on 5 March his opera Jean-Michel premiered at the La Monnaie

La Monnaie

Le Théâtre Royal de la Monnaie , or the Koninklijke Muntschouwburg is a theatre in Brussels, Belgium....

.

Appointed conductor of the Theater of Ghent

Ghent

Ghent is a city and a municipality located in the Flemish region of Belgium. It is the capital and biggest city of the East Flanders province. The city started as a settlement at the confluence of the Rivers Scheldt and Lys and in the Middle Ages became one of the largest and richest cities of...

 in 1905, he withdrew the season completed to devote himself to composition. But when in 1907 the council of Verviers offered him the post of director of the conservatory, he accepted and held it until his retirement in 1947. During his lifetime, his works met with some success in Brussels and in major cities in Belgium (particularly in Flanders

Flanders

Flanders is the community of the Flemings but also one of the institutions in Belgium, and a geographical region located in parts of present-day Belgium, France and the Netherlands. "Flanders" can also refer to the northern part of Belgium that contains Brussels, Bruges, Ghent and Antwerp...

) and France in particular his opera La Passion, played more than 150 times La Monnaie and he directed them several times. He also enjoyed the esteem of his peers, as Eugene Ysaÿe

Eugène Ysaÿe

Eugène Ysaÿe was a Belgian violinist, composer and conductor born in Liège. He was regarded as "The King of the Violin", or, as Nathan Milstein put it, the "tzar"...

, dedicated of several of his works and who informed the United States.

Legacy

Two of Dupuis' daughters, Gislène (cello) and Irene (violin), were eminent concert musicians. A street is named after him in the village of Stembert.

Selected works

Viola

• Aria for Viola and Piano or Orchestra
• Chanson affectueuse for Viola and Piano
• Chant d’adieu for Viola and Piano (1932)
• Chant du retour for Viola and Piano
• Chopin for Viola and Piano
• Evocation d’orient for Viola (or Violin) and Piano
• Grieg for Viola and Piano
• La jeune fille au rouet for Viola and Piano
• Méditation for Viola and Piano
• Mendelssohn for Viola and Piano (1933)
• Petite Variation for Viola and Piano
• Schumann for Viola and Piano

External links

• Recordings of some works on the Médiathèque of Brussels
• Scores : 1 2