Theodore Dubois
1837 - 1924
French
Biography
Théodore Dubois was born in 1837 in Rosnay in north-eastern France. He showed great interest in music at an early age, and studied harmony, fugue and the organ at the Paris Conservatoire, where he won several prizes, culminating in the Grand Prix de Rome in 1861. From 1855 to 1858 he was organist at the Chapelle des Invalides, but on his return from Rome he took up an appointment as maître de chapelle at Sainte-Clotilde. He then occupied the same post at the Madeleine before he succeeded Camille Saint-Saëns as organist there in 1877. At the same time he taught harmony and composition at the Conservatoire and became director there from 1896 to 1905. As well as his famous Traité d’harmonie (1921), long considered a definitive work, he also wrote a variety of vocal works, both sacred and secular, and numerous orchestral and instrumental pieces. Dubois was an consciencious musician, and considered to be representative of the classical school. He died in Paris in 1924.