Paul Abraham Dukas was born in Paris on October 1, 1865. When he was five, his mother died in childbirth. Dukas did not show significant musical ability until he was 14, when he began composing while recovering from an illness. At 16 he entered the Conservatoire de Paris where he studied music with Claude Debussy, and where he would later teach.
Dukas was very critical of his work and destroyed many of his compositions after they were finished. His most famous surviving work is The Sorcerer’s Apprentice (1897) which was featured in Disney’s Fantasia.
