Gabriel Dupont collection

Held at the Centre de documentation of the Caen Conservatoire, the archives that make up the Gabriel Dupont Collection come from three successive bequests made in the middle of the twentieth century by Dupont’s descendants – in particular his sister-in-law, Marie Dupont, in 1950 (call numbers 1FGD and 3FGD) – and the pianist Maurice Dumesnil, in 1959 (call number 2FGD). 

The initial goal of these donations was to create a museum dedicated to the composer in one of the Conservatoire’s halls. The museum never came into being and the memory of the musician slowly faded in his native town. The documents gathered here provide essential elements for understanding the work of this Belle Époque composer, from his sketches to the corrected proofs of his published scores. They also provide biographical evidence – photographs and a series of postcards addressed to his brother – that was used by Philippe Simon in his biography Gabriel Dupont (1878-1914), musicien oublié (Éditions Séguier, 2001).

 Bru Zane Mediabase offers a broad overview of this documentary collection: the scores are not put online in their entirety, and only their title pages or first pages are offered here. The call numbers refer to the cataloguing carried out by the Conservatoire & Orchestre de Caen, the result of which can be consulted here: https://bibliotheques.caenlamer.fr