Louis-Albert Bourgault-Ducoudray

Louis-Albert Bourgault-Ducoudray (2 February 1840 – 4 July 1910) was a French Breton composer, pianist, and professor of music history/theory at the Conservatoire de Paris as well as a Prix de Rome laureate. He was born at Nantes and died at Vernouillet, near Dreux. Debussy was one of his protégés.

His bucolic upbringing near the family estate of Grézillières certainly added to his eventual fascination with the folklore, music, and culture of Brittany and other nations. Later in life, Bourgault would support the Breton Regionalist Union, a Celtic organization indebted to the propagation of Breton culture, ideals, and the notions of independence. He was also represented in the Goursez.

Bourgault was from a family of considerable political and ancestral influence. His uncle was Adolphe Billault, the famous minister of the Second Empire. He was personally selected by Napoleon III to act as France's Interior Minister from 1854-1858 (Groves 6, III, p. 110). Another of his uncles, Jules Rieffel, from Alsace, founded one of France's first agricultural schools called the École nationale supérieure agronomique de Rennes. His father was an important businessman, ship owner and munitions expert.

These family connections enabled him to study law before switching to music at the Paris Conservatoire under Ambroise Thomas, where he obtained the prestigious Prix de Rome in 1862 with his cantata Louise de Mézière. He served in the Franco-Prussian War and was wounded during the siege of Paris, receiving the Medaille militaire for conspicuous bravery. In 1874 visited Greece, where he began studying Greek church music and folk music. In 1878 he was appointed professor of musical history at the Paris Conservatoire. Among his many pupils were Charles Koechlin and Claude Debussy. Through music-making and time spent at the Villa Medici in Rome, he became good friends with Jules Massenet.

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