Marie-Catherine Girod / Quatuor Pražák GABRIEL DUPONT

Gabriel Dupont, who lived to the age of only 36 before succumbing to tuberculosis in 1914, is one of those late-19th- and early 20th-century French composers whom history has eclipsed in favour of such leading lights as Debussy and Ravel, yet in 1901 Dupont beat Ravel into third place by coming second in the Prix de Rome (André Caplet won first prize with the cantata Myrrha). Despite success with opera in his day, Dupont’s name has survived largely through his piano cycles Les heures dolentes (1903 05) and La maison dans les dunes (1907 09).

In these miniatures, as Marie-Catherine Girod shows in these affectionately turned performances of selections from both sets, Dupont expressed an attractive, limpid wistfulness. His illness, which dogged him for his last decade, not only removed him from the centres of musical activity in Paris but also seems to have wrapped him in a mood of inner reflection – by no means always sad, as can be heard, for instance, in the scintillating ‘Du soleil au jardin’ and ‘Coquetteries’ from Les heures dolentes, but generally with a sense of regret that he cannot completely enjoy his surroundings while encumbered with ill-health. ‘Mélancolie du bonheur’ (‘Melancholy of Happiness’) seems to be his overriding state of mind. Journée de printemps for violin and piano is a beguiling diptych of a spring morning and evening; but not even Girod and the excellent Pražák  Quartet can rescue the overlong, suffocatingly overheated Poème (Geoffrey Norris / Gramophone)

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