Alfred Desenclos

Biography

Alfred Desenclos was a French composer active throughout the twentieth century. He described his own music as ‘romantic’, and his compositions are highly expressive and rooted in compositional technique. His early life was unconventional for a composer: as a teenager he had to renounce formal education and work in the textile industry to support his large family. At the age of 20, he was able to enroll at the Conservatoire of Roubaix to study piano, and was later accepted to the Paris Conservatoire in 1932, where he won a number of prizes for composition.

He wrote a large amount of sacred music in the tradition of Saint-Saëns and Fauré, and won the prestigious Prix de Rome award in 1942. He later became director of the Conservatoire of Roubaix, and taught harmony at the Paris Conservatoire from 1967 until his death in 1971.