Composer, born in Paris, France. Some of his music is classical in approach, but he tended mainly towards Impressionism. His best-known work is the symphonic poem L'Apprenti sorcier (1897, The Sorcerer's Apprentice). He also wrote several orchestral and piano pieces, and was professor of composition at the Paris Conservatoire from 1927 until his death.
After completing his studies Dukas found work as a music critic and orchestrator;Although Dukas wrote a fair amount of music, he was perfectionistic and, unfortunately, destroyed many of his pieces out of dissatisfaction with them.
The symphony was followed by another orchestral work, L'apprenti sorcier, better known under its English title The Sorcerer's Apprentice (1897), which is based on Goethe's poem "Der Zauberlehrling".
For the piano, Dukas wrote two complex and technically demanding large-scale works, a Sonata (1901) and Variations, interlude and finale on a theme of Rameau (1902), again reminiscent of Beethoven and Franck. The opera Ariane et Barbe-Bleue ("Ariadne and Bluebeard"), on which he worked from 1899 to 1907, has often been compared to Debussy's Pelléas et Mélisande, partly because of musical similarities and partly because both operas are based on libretti by Maurice Maeterlinck. The sumptuous oriental ballet La Péri (1912) was Dukas's last major work.
In the last decades of his life, Dukas became well known as a teacher of composition, with many famous students including Joaquín Rodrigo, Maurice Duruflé, Olivier Messiaen and Jehan Alain.
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