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Year 1895 (MDCCCXCV) was a common year starting on Tuesday (link will display full calendar) of the Gregorian calendar and a common year starting on Sunday of the 12-day-slower Julian calendar.

Events[link]

January–March[link]

• January 5 – Dreyfus Affair: French officer Alfred Dreyfus is stripped of his army rank and sentenced to life imprisonment on Devil's Island.^[1]
• January 17 – Félix Faure was elected President of French Republic after the resignation of Jean Casimir-Perier.
• January 21 – The National Trust is founded in Britain by Octavia Hill, Robert Hunter and Canon Hardwicke Rawnsley.
• February 9 – Mintonette, later known as volleyball, is created by William G. Morgan at Holyoke, Massachusetts.
• February 11 – The lowest ever UK temperature of −27.2 °C (−17.0 °F) is recorded at Braemar in Aberdeenshire. This record is equalled in 1982 and again in 1995.
• February 14 – Oscar Wilde's last play The Importance of Being Earnest is first shown at St. James' Theatre in London.
• February 20 – Venezuela Crisis of 1895: President Grover Cleveland signs into law a bill resulting from the proposition of House Resolution 252 by William Lindsay Scruggs and Congressman Leonidas Livingston to the third session of the 53rd Congress of the United States of America. The bill recommends Venezuela and Great Britain settle their dispute by arbitration.
• March 1 – William L. Wilson is appointed United States Postmaster General.
• March 3 – In Munich, bicyclists have to pass a test and display license plates.
• March 4 – Japanese troops capture Liaoyang and land in Taiwan.
• March 15 – in County Tipperary, Ireland, Bridget Cleary is killed by her husband, believing her to be a fairy changeling.
• March 30 – Rudolf Diesel patents the Diesel engine in Germany.

January 5: Dreyfus Affair.

May 24: Republic of Formosa.

April–June[link]

• April 6 – Oscar Wilde is arrested after losing a libel case against the Marquess of Queensberry.
• April 14 – A major earthquake severely damages Ljubljana, Slovenia.
• April 16 – The town of Sturgeon Falls, Ontario, is incorporated.
• April 17 – The Treaty of Shimonoseki is signed between China and Japan. This marks the end of the first Sino-Japanese War, and the defeated Qing Empire is forced to renounce its claims on Korea and to concede the southern portion of Fengtien province, Taiwan, and the Pescadores Islands to Japan.^[2]
• April 22 – Gongche Shangshu movement: 603 candidates sign a 10,000-word petition against the Treaty of Shimonoseki.
• May 1 – Dundela Football, Sports & Association Club were formed
• May 2 – Gongche Shangshu movement: Thousands of Beijing scholars and citizens protest against the Treaty of Shimonoseki.
• May 24 – Anti-Japanese officials led by Tang Ching-sung in Taiwan declare independence from the Qing Dynasty, forming the short-lived Republic of Formosa.
• May 25 – Oscar Wilde is convicted of "sodomy and gross indecency" and is sentenced to serve 2 years in prison at Reading.
• May 27 – In re Debs: The Supreme Court of the United States decides that the federal government has the right to regulate interstate commerce, legalizing the military suppression of the Pullman Strike.
• June 28
  • The union of Nicaragua, Honduras and El Salvador begins (ends in 1898).
  • The Court of Private Land Claims rules that James Reavis's claim to Barony of Arizona is "wholly fictitious and fraudulent".

July–September[link]

July 31: Sabino Arana founds the Basque Nationalist Party.

October 1895 issue: The Cosmopolitan, illustrated.

October 22: Montparnasse.

• Night of July 10–July 11 – The Doukhobors' pacifist protests culminate in the "Burning of the ass" in their villages in the South Caucasus.
• July 15 – Archie MacLaren scores County Championship cricket record innings of 424 for Lancashire against Somerset at Taunton.
• July 31 – The Basque Nationalist Party (Euzko Alderdi Jeltzalea-Partido Nacionalista Vasco) was founded by Basque nationalist leader Sabino Arana.
• August 19 – American frontier murderer and outlaw John Wesley Hardin is killed by an off-duty policeman in a saloon in El Paso, Texas.
• August 29 – The Northern Rugby Football Union (now Rugby Football League) is formed at a meeting of 21 rugby clubs in the George Hotel, Huddersfield, England.^[3] This event leads to the creation of the sport of rugby league football.
• September 3 – The first professional American football game is played, in Latrobe, Pennsylvania, between the Latrobe YMCA and the Jeannette Athletic Club (Latrobe wins 12–0).
• September 7 – The first game of what would become known as rugby league football is played, in England, starting the 1895–96 Northern Rugby Football Union season.
• September 18
  • Booker T. Washington delivers the Atlanta Compromise speech.^[4]
  • Tomoji Tanabe is born in Miyakonojo, Miyazaki Prefecture, Japan. He would become the last living man born in 1895. Tanabe died on June 19, 2009, at the age of 113.

October–December[link]

• October – Rudyard Kipling publishes the story Mowgli Leaves the Jungle Forever in The Cosmopolitan illustrated magazine (price 10 cents).
• October 1 – French troops capture Antananarivo in Madagascar.
• October 8 – The Eulmi Incident: Empress Myeongseong of Korea, is killed at her private residence within Gyeongbokgung Palace. Japanese agents under Miura Goro attack the Korean Royal Guard. Her son Sunjong accuses General Woo Beom-seon. Miura Goro is recalled to Japan, and tried along with 55 other men; all were acquitted for lack of evidence.^[5]
• October 22 – A train wreck occurs at Montparnasse Station in Paris.
• October 23 – The city of Tainan, last stronghold of the Republic of Formosa, capitulates to the forces of the Empire of Japan, ending the short-lived republic and beginning the Japanese rule era.
• October 31 – A major earthquake occurs in the New Madrid Seismic Zone, the last to date.
• November 5 – George B. Selden is granted the first U.S. patent for an automobile.
• November 8 – Wilhelm Röntgen discovers a type of radiation later known as X-rays.
• November 25 – Oscar Hammerstein opens the Olympia Theatre, the first theatre to be built in NYC's Times Square district.
• November 25 – the first American automobile race in history is sponsored by the Chicago-Times Herald. Press coverage first aroused significant American interest in the automobile.^[6]
• November 27 – At the Swedish-Norwegian Club in Paris, Alfred Nobel signs his last will and testament, setting aside his estate to establish the Nobel Prize after his death.
• December – 3,000 Armenians are burned alive in Urfa by Ottoman troops.
• December 7 – A corps of 2,350 Italian troops, mostly Ascari, are crushed by 30,000 Abyssian troops at Amba Alagi.
• December 24 – George Washington Vanderbilt II officially opens his "Biltmore House" estate on Christmas Eve, inviting his family to celebrate his new home in Asheville, NC.
• December 24 – Kingstown Lifeboat Disaster- 15 lifeboat crew are lost when their lifeboat capsizes while trying to rescue the crew of the SS Palme off Kingstown, now Dún Laoighaire, near Dublin, Ireland.
• December 28 – Auguste and Louis Lumière display their first moving picture film in Paris.

Date unknown[link]

• The London School of Economics and Political Science is founded in London, England.
• Konstantin Tsiolkovsky proposes a space elevator.
• Grace Chisholm Young becomes the first woman awarded a doctorate at a German university.
• W. E. B. Du Bois becomes the first African American to receive a Ph.D. from Harvard University.
• The Duck Reach Power Station opens in Tasmania.
• The first Boxer (dog) show is held at Munich, Germany.
• A huge crowd at the Welsh Grand National at Ely Racecourse, Cardiff, almost overwhelms police trying to keep out gatecrashers.
• The gold reserve of the U.S. Treasury is saved when J. P. Morgan and the Rothschilds loan $65 million worth of gold to the United States government.
• The Biltmore Estate near Asheville, North Carolina is completed.
• The Swarovski Company opens.
• German trade unions have c. 270,000 members.
• The huge indemnity exacted from China is used to establish the Yawata Iron and Steel Works.
• Foundation of:
  • Dundela FC (Belfast, Ireland)
  • Shelbourne F.C. (Dublin, Ireland)

Births[link]

January–March[link]

• January 1
  • Bert Acosta, American aviator (d. 1954)
  • J. Edgar Hoover, American Federal Bureau of Investigation director (d. 1972)
• January 4 – Leroy Grumman, American aeronautical engineer, test pilot, and industrialist. (d. 1982)
• January 15
  • Leo Aryeh Mayer, Israeli professor and scholar of Islamic art (d. 1959)
  • Artturi Ilmari Virtanen, Finnish chemist, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 1973)
• January 21 – Cristobal Balenciaga, Spanish-French couturier (d. 1972)
• January 23 – Raymond Griffith, American actor (d. 1957)
• January 24 – Eugen Roth, German writer (d. 1976)
• January 30 – Wilhelm Gustloff, German-born Swiss Nazi party leader (d. 1936)
• February 2 – George Halas, American football player, coach, and co-founder of the National Football League (d. 1983)
• February 6 – Babe Ruth, American baseball player (d. 1948)
• February 14 – Max Horkheimer, German philosopher and sociologist (d. 1973)
• February 15 – Earl Thomson, Canadian athlete (d. 1971)
• February 18 (O.S. 6 February) – Semyon Timoshenko, Soviet general, Marshal of the Soviet Union (d. 1970)
• February 19 – Diego Mazquiarán, Spanish matador (d. 1940)
• February 21 – Carl Peter Henrik Dam, Danish biochemist, recipient of the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine (d. 1976)
• February 25 – Lew Andreas, American basketball coach (d. 1984)
• February 27 – Edward Brophy, American character actor (d. 1960)
• February 28
  • Louise Lovely, Australian actress (d. 1980)
  • Marcel Pagnol, French novelist and playwright (d. 1974)
• March 3
  • Ragnar Anton Kittil Frisch, Norwegian economist, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 1973)
  • Matthew Ridgway, Commander of NATO, United States Army Chief of Staff (d. 1993)
• March 4
  • Shemp Howard, American actor and comedian (The Three Stooges) (d. 1955)
  • Milt Gross, American comic book illustrator and animator (d. 1953)
• March 12 – William C. Lee, U.S. general (d. 1948)
• March 20 – Robert Benoist, French race car driver and war hero (d. 1944)
• March 23 – Encarnacion Alzona, Filipino historian (d. 2001)
• March 28 – Spencer W. Kimball, president of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (d. 1985)
• March 29 – Ernst Jünger, German author (d. 1998)

April–June[link]

• April 1 – Alberta Hunter, American singer (d. 1984)
• April 3 – Mario Castelnuovo-Tedesco, Italian composer (d. 1968)
• April 9 – Mance Lipscomb, American singer (d. 1976)
• April 13 – Olga Rudge, American violinist (d. 1996)
• April 15
  • Corrado Alvaro, Italian writer and journalist (d. 1968)
  • Clark McConachy, New Zealand snooker and billiards player (d. 1980)
• April 20 – Emile Christian, American musician (d. 1973)
• April 29 – Malcolm Sargent, English conductor (d. 1967)
• May 6 – Rudolph Valentino, Italian actor (d. 1926)
• May 8 – Fulton J. Sheen, American Catholic archbishop and television personality (d. 1979)
• May 10 – Kama Chinen, Japanese woman supercentenarian and oldest person in the world (d. 2010)
• May 17
  • Mary Josephine Ray, Canadian woman supercentenarian and second oldest person in the world (d. 2010)
  • Saul Adler FRS, Russian-born British-Israeli expert on parasitology (d. 1966)
• May 25 – Dorothea Lange, American documentary photographer and photojournalist (d. 1965)
• June 10 – Hattie McDaniel, Actress, The first African-American woman to win an Academy Award in 1939 (d. 1952)
• June 12 – Wilfrid Kent Hughes, Australian Olympian and politician (d. 1970)
• June 24 – Jack Dempsey, American heavyweight boxer (d. 1983)

July–September[link]

• July 2 – Pavel Osipovich Sukhoi, Russian aircraft engineer (d. 1975)
• July 8 – Igor Tamm, Russian physicist, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 1971)
• July 10 – Carl Orff, German composer (d. 1982)
• July 12
  • Kirstin Flagstad, Norwegian soprano (d. 1982)
  • Buckminster Fuller, American architect (d. 1983)
• July 14 – F. R. Leavis, British literary critic (d. 1978)
• July 19 – Xu Beihong, Chinese painter (d. 1953)
• July 22 – León de Greiff, Colombian poet (d. 1976)
• July 24 – Robert Graves, English writer (d. 1985)
• July 25 – Yvonne Printemps, French singer and actress (d. 1977)
• July 26 – Gracie Allen, American actress and comedian (d. 1964)
• August 3 – Neva Morris, American supercentenarian (d. 2010)
• August 6 – Ernesto Lecuona, A Cuban pianist and composer (d. 1963)
• August 12 – Lynde D. McCormick, American admiral (d. 1956)
• August 16
  • Liane Haid, Austrian actress (d. 2000)
  • Lucien Littlefield, American actor (d. 1960)
• August 18 – Sibyl Morrison, Australian barrister (d. 1961)
• August 24 – Tuanku Abdul Rahman, King of Malaysia (d. 1960)
• September 1
  • Chembai, Indian Carnatic musician (d. 1974)
  • Engelbert Zaschka, German helicopter pioneer (d. 1955)
• September 7 – Sir Brian Horrocks, British general (d. 1985)
• September 11 – Vinoba Bhave, Indian religious leader (d. 1982)
• September 13 – Ruth McDevitt, American actress (d. 1976)
• September 18 – Tomoji Tanabe, Japanese supercentenarian who would become the last living man born in 1895 (d. 2009)
• September 21 – Juan de la Cierva, Spanish civil engineer, aviator, and aeronautical engineer. and inventor of the autogyro (d. 1936)
• September 24 – André Frédéric Cournand, French-born physician, recipient of the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine (d. 1988)
• September 29 – Joseph Banks Rhine, American parapsychologist (d. 1980)

October–December[link]

• October 3
  • Giovanni Comisso, Italian writer (d. 1969)
  • Sergei Aleksandrovich Yesenin, Russian lyric poet (d. 1925)
• October 4 – Buster Keaton, American actor and film director (d. 1966)
• October 6 – Caroline Gordon, American writer and critic (d. 1981)
• October 8
  • Juan Domingo Perón, President of Argentina (d. 1974)
  • King Zog of Albania (d. 1961)
• October 10 – Wolfram Freiherr von Richthofen, German field marshal (d. 1945)
• October 13
  • Cemal Gürsel, Turkish army officer and President (d. 1966)
  • Mike Gazella, American baseball player (d. 1978)
• October 14 – Silas Simmons, Pre-Negro League Baseball player, longest-lived professional baseball player (d. 2006)
• October 19 – Lewis Mumford, American historian (d. 1990)
• October 21 – Edna Purviance, American actress (d. 1958)
• October 22 – Rolf Nevanlinna, Finnish mathematician (d. 1980)
• October 25 – Levi Eshkol, Israeli Prime Minister (d. 1969)
• October 30
  • Gerhard Domagk, German bacteriologist, recipient of the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine (declined) (d. 1964)
  • Dickinson W. Richards, American physician, recipient of the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine (d. 1973)
• October 31 – Basil Liddell Hart, British military historian (d. 1970)
• November 5 – Walter Gieseking, German pianist (d. 1956)
• November 10 – John Knudsen Northrop, American airplane manufacturer (d. 1981)
• November 14
  • Walter Freeman, American physician (d. 1972)
  • Maggie Mae Renfro, American supercentenarian (d. 2010)
• November 15
  • Grand Duchess Olga Nikolaevna of Russia (d. 1918)
  • Antoni Słonimski, Polish poet and writer (d. 1976)
• November 16 – Paul Hindemith, German composer (d. 1963)
• November 17 – Mikhail Bakhtin, Russian philosopher and literary scholar (d. 1975)
• November 25
  • Wilhelm Kempff, German pianist (d. 1991)
  • Helen Hooven Santmyer, American writer (d. 1986)
• November 29 – Busby Berkeley, American film director and choreographer (d. 1976)
• December 2 – Harriet Cohen, English pianist (d. 1967)
• December 28 – Carol Ryrie Brink, American author (d. 1981)
• December 14
  • Paul Eluard, French poet (d. 1952)
  • King George VI of the United Kingdom (d. 1952)

Deaths[link]

January–June[link]

• January 9 – Aaron Lufkin Dennison, American watchmaker (b. 1812)
• January 10 – Benjamin Godard, French composer (b. 1849)
• January 24 – Lord Randolph Churchill, British statesman (b. 1849)
• February 2 – Archduke Albert, Austrian general (b. 1817)
• February 20 – Frederick Douglass, American ex-slave and author (b. 1818)
• February 25 – Henry Bruce, 1st Baron Aberdare, politician (b. 1815)
• February 26 – Salvador de Itúrbide y de Marzán, Prince of Mexico (b. 1849)
• March 2 – Berthe Morisot, French painter (b. 1841)
• March 10 – Charles Frederick Worth, English-born couturier (b. 1826)
• April 4 – Nikolai Baranov, Russian politician (b. 1843)
• May 19 – José Martí, Cuban independence leader (b. 1853)
• May 21 – Franz von Suppé, Austrian composer (b. 1819)
• May 26 – Ahmet Cevdet Pasha, Ottoman statesman (b. 1822)
• May 28 – Walter Q. Gresham, American politician (b. 1832)
• June 6 – Gustaf Nordenskiöld, Swedish explorer (b. 1868)
• June 27 – Sophie Adlersparre, Swedish feminist (b. 1823)
• June 29
  • Thomas Henry Huxley, English evolutionary biologist (b. 1825)
  • Green Clay Smith, American politician (b. 1826)
  • Floriano Vieira Peixoto, 2nd president of Brazil (b. 1839)
  • Emile Munier, French artist (b. 1840)

July–December[link]

• July 28 – Edward Beecher, American theologian (b. 1803)
• August 4 – Louis-Antoine Dessaulles, Quebec journalist and politician (b. 1818)
• August 5 – Friedrich Engels, German communist philosopher (b. 1820)
• August 22 – Luzon B. Morris, American politician (b. 1827)
• September 28 – Louis Pasteur, French microbiologist and chemist (b. 1822)
• October 8 – Empress Myeongseong (Queen Min), last Korean empress (b. 1851), assassinated
• October 25 – Charles Hallé, German-born pianist and conductor (b. 1819)
• November 5 – Prince Kitashirakawa Yoshihisa of Japan (b. 1847)
• November 23 – Mauritz de Haas, Dutch-American marine painter (b. 1832)
• November 27 – Alexandre Dumas, fils, French author and playwright (b. 1824)
• December 13 – Anyos Jedlik, Hungarian physicist, inventor of the Dynamo (b. 1800)

References[link]

Paul Dukas

Paul Abraham Dukas (1 October 1865 – 17 May 1935) was a French composer, critic, scholar and teacher. A studious man, of retiring personality, he was intensely self-critical, and he abandoned and destroyed many of his compositions. His best known work is the orchestral piece, L'apprenti sorcier (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 (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, Berlioz, Franck, 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 and the École Normale de Musique; his pupils included Maurice Duruflé, Olivier Messiaen and Joaquín Rodrigo.

Life and career[link]

Early years[link]

Dukas was born in Paris, the second son in a Jewish family of three children.^[1][2] His father, Jules Dukas, was a banker, and his mother, Eugénie, was a capable pianist.^[2][3] When Dukas was five years old, his mother died giving birth to her third child, Marguerite-Lucie.^[2] Dukas took piano lessons, but showed no unusual musical talent until he was 14 when he began to compose while recovering from an illness.^[2] He entered the Conservatoire de Paris at the end of 1881, aged 16, and studied piano with Georges Mathias, harmony with Théodore Dubois and composition with Ernest Guiraud.^[4] Among his fellow students was Claude Debussy, with whom Dukas formed a close friendship.^[1] 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.^[2]

Dukas won several prizes, including the second place in the Conservatoire's most prestigious award, the Prix de Rome, for his cantata Velléda in 1888.^[4] Disappointed at his failure to win the top prize, he left the Conservatoire in 1889.^[5] After compulsory military service he began a dual career as a composer and a music critic.^[4]

1890s[link]

Dukas's career as a critic began in 1892 with a review of Wagner's Der Ring des Nibelungen conducted by Gustav Mahler at Covent Garden in London.^[2] His review was published in La Revue Hebdomadaire; he later wrote also for Minerva, La Chronique des Arts, Gazette des Beaux-Arts and Le Courrier Musical.^[4] His Parisian debut as composer was a performance of his overture Polyeucte, written in 1891 and premiered by Charles Lamoureux and his Orchestre Lamoureux in January 1892. Based on a tragedy by Corneille, the work, like many French works of the period, shows the influence of Wagner,^[1] but is coherent and displays some individuality.^[4]

Although Dukas wrote a fair amount of music, he was a perfectionist and destroyed many of his pieces out of dissatisfaction with them.^[3] 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".^[6]

The Symphony in C major was composed in 1895–96, when Dukas was in his early 30s. It is dedicated to Paul Vidal, and had its first performance in January 1896, under the direction of the dedicatee.^[4] 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."^[4] Like Franck's only symphony, Dukas's is in three movements rather than the conventional four. Schwerké wrote of it:

Expressed in an individual and spontaneous idiom, the Symphony in C gives free play to the author's creative spirit and to his fund of exalted emotion. The high-spirited, impetuous first movement, Allegro non troppo vivace is intensely rhythmic. Its logical structure, strong thematic material, polyphonic richness and virile instrumentation combine to create an exhilarating effect of life and pageant color. The second movement, Andante, in sharp contrast to the first, reveals the perfect finish of the composer's style and the ineffable charm of his melody. The robust last movement, Allegro spiritoso, so verdant in instrumentation, brings the symphony to a vigorous close.^[4]

The work received a mixed reception at its first performance. Désiré-Émile Inghelbrecht, 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."^[7] The symphony was better received when the Lamoureux Orchestra revived it in 1902.^[7]

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) (1897), a short piece (lasting for between 10 and 12 minutes in performance)^[8] based on Goethe's poem "Der Zauberlehrling".^[1] During Dukas's lifetime The Musical Quarterly commented that the world fame of the work not only overshadowed all other compositions by Dukas, but also eclipsed Goethe's original poem.^[4] The popularity of the piece became a matter of irritation to Dukas.^[5] In 2011, the Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians observed, "The popularity of L'apprenti sorcier and the exhilarating film version of it in Disney's Fantasia possibly hindered a fuller understanding of Dukas, as that single work is far better known than its composer."^[2]

20th century works[link]

Costume design for Dukas's La Péri

In the decade after L'apprenti sorcier, Dukas completed two complex and technically demanding large-scale works for solo piano: the Piano Sonata (1901), dedicated to Saint-Saëns, and Variations, Interlude and Finale on a Theme by Rameau (1902).^[2] 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".^[9] There are also two smaller works for piano solo. The Sonata, described by the critic Edward Lockspeiser as "huge and somewhat recondite",^[10] did not enter the mainstream repertoire, but it has been more recently championed by such pianists as Marc-André Hamelin and Margaret Fingerhut.^[11][12] Lockspeiser describes the Rameau Variations as more developed and assured ... Dukas infuses the conventional form with a new and powerful spirit."^[10]

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 (Ariadne and Bluebeard). The work is a setting of a libretto by Maurice Maeterlinck.^[13] The author had intended the libretto to be set by Grieg but in 1899 he offered it to Dukas.^[14] Dukas worked on it for seven years and it was produced at the Opéra-Comique in 1907.^[2] The opera has often been compared to Debussy's 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.^[13] Although it won considerable praise, its success was overshadowed by the Paris premiere of Richard Strauss's sensational opera Salome at much the same time.^[2] None the less, within a short time of its premiere, Dukas's opera was produced in Vienna, where it aroused much interest in Schoenberg's circle, and in Frankfurt, Milan and New York.^[2] It did not maintain a regular place in the repertory, despite the advocacy of Arturo Toscanini, who conducted it in New York three years in succession,^[15] and Sir Thomas Beecham, who pronounced it "one of the finest lyrical dramas of our time,"^[16] and staged it at Covent Garden in 1937.^[17] Interest in it revived in the 1990s, with productions in Paris (Théâtre du Châtelet, 1990) and Hamburg (Staatsoper, 1997),^[2] and at the Opéra Bastille in Paris in 2007.^[18]

Dukas's last major work was the sumptuous oriental ballet 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).^[19] 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 planned a production with his Ballets Russes but the production did not take place; the company's choreographer Fokine staged L'apprenti sorcier as a ballet in 1916.^[2]

In 1916, Dukas married Suzanne Pereyra, who was of Portuguese descent. They had one child, a daughter Adrienne-Thérèse, born in December 1919.^[2]

Later years[link]

Paul Dukas and students of his composition class at the Paris Conservatoire, 1929. Olivier Messiaen is on the extreme right; Maurice Duruflé stands next to him

In the last years of his life, Dukas became well known as a teacher of composition. When Charles-Marie Widor retired as professor of composition at the Paris Conservatoire in 1927, Dukas was appointed in his place.^[4] He also taught at the École Normale de Musique in Paris. His many students included Jehan Alain, Elsa Barraine, Francis Chagrin, Carlos Chávez, Maurice Duruflé, Georges Hugon, Jean Langlais, Olivier Messiaen, Manuel Ponce, Joaquín Rodrigo, David Van Vactor and Xian Xinghai.^[1][2][20] 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."^[19] 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."^[4] 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".^[2]

After La Péri, Dukas completed no new large-scale compositions, although, as with his contemporary Jean Sibelius, there were frequent reports of major work in hand.^[14] 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, for voice and piano, published in 1924 to mark the five hundredth anniversary of the poet's birth.^[3] Shortly before his death he had been working on a symphonic poem inspired by Shakespeare's The Tempest,^[3] a play of which he had made a French translation in 1918 with an operatic version in mind.^[2]

In the last year of his life Dukas was elected to membership of the Académie des Beaux-Arts.^[14] Though adhering to neither the progressive or conservative factions among French musicians of the era, Dukas had the friendship and respect of both.^[5] In 1920, Vincent d'Indy published a study of Dukas's music;^[2] Debussy remained a life-long friend, though feeling that Dukas's music was not French enough;^[14] 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;^[4] Fauré dedicated his Second Piano Quintet to Dukas in 1921.^[21]

Dukas died in Paris in 1935, aged 69. He was cremated and his ashes were placed in the columbarium at Père Lachaise Cemetery in Paris.^[22]

List of works[link]

Published by the composer[link]

• Polyeucte, overture for orchestra (1891)
• Symphony in C (1895–96)
• L'apprenti sorcier ("The Sorcerer's Apprentice"), for orchestra (1897)
• Piano Sonata in E-flat minor (1899–1900)
• Variations, Interlude and Finale on a Theme by Rameau, for piano (c.1899–1902)
• Ariane et Barbe-bleue, 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[link]

• 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[link]

• 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)

Notes[link]

References[link]

• Jefferson, Alan (1979). Sir Thomas Beecham – A Centenary Tribute. London: Macdonald and Jane's. ISBN [[Special:BookSources/0-354-04305-X|0-354-04305-X]]. 
• Jones, J. Barrie (1909). Gabriel Fauré – A Life in Letters. London: B. T. Batsford. ISBN 0-7134-5468-7. 
• Lockspeiser, Edward (1957). "Paul Dukas". In Bacharach, A. L. (ed.). The Music Masters. Harmondsworth: Pelican Books. OCLC 655768838. 
• Walsh, Stephen (1997). "Paul Dukas". In Holden, Amanda (ed.). The Penguin Opera Guide. London: Penguin Books. ISBN 0-14-051385-X. 

External links[link]

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Paul Dukas

• Free scores at the Mutopia Project
• Free scores by Paul Dukas at the International Music Score Library Project
• Free scores by Paul Dukas in the Werner Icking Music Archive (WIMA)