Dupont, Gabriel
Dupont, Gabriel
Dupont, Gabriel, French composer; b. Caen, March 1, 1878; d. Vesinet, Aug. 2, 1914. He was a pupil of his father, the organist at the Cathedral, of Gédalge, and later of Massenet and Widor at the Paris Cons. He won the 2nd Prix de Rome in 1901. In a contest conducted in 1903 by Sonzogno, the publishing house in Milan, his opera La Cabrera was selected, along with two others, to be performed and judged by the public (237 works were submitted); it was produced at Milan on May 17, 1904, with great success, thereby winning for Dupont the prize of 50,000 lire. He wrote other operas: La Glu (Nice, Jan. 24, 1910), La Farce du cuvier (Brussels, March 21, 1912), and Antar (1913; Paris Opera, March 14, 1921), as well as Les Heures dolentes for Orch., four pieces from a suite of 14 compositions for Piano (1903–5), Poemes d’automne for Piano, two symphonic poems: Hymne a Aphrodite and Le Chant de la destinee, Poeme for Piano Quintet and many other piano pieces, and songs.
—Nicolas Slonimsky/Laura Kuhn/Dennis McIntire