Louis-Albert Bourgault-Ducoudray
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Louis-Albert Bourgault-Ducoudray was a French composer and teacher. He was born at Nantes on 2 February 1840 and died at Vernouillet, near Paris, on 4 July 1910. He studied law before switching to music at the Paris Conservatoire under Ambroise Thomas and obtained the Prix de Rome in 1862. He served in the Franco-Prussian War and was wounded, receiving a medal for conspicuous bravery, and 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 was Charles Koechlin. He wrote operas, choral works and orchestral music and published several collections of folksongs, mainly Greek, Breton and Scottish. He also wrote a biography of Schubert.
