André Léon Caplet (; 23 November 1878 – 22 April 1925) was a French composer and conductor of classical music. He was a friend of Claude Debussy who orchestrated several of his compositions, as well as arrangements of several of them for different instruments.
Early life
André Caplet was born in Le Havre on 23 November 1878, the youngest of seven children born to a Norman family of modest means. He began studying piano and violin when a child and by the age of 13 performed in the orchestra of the Grand Théâtre there. He entered the Paris Conservatory in 1896 and won several prizes. While a student he supported himself first by playing in dance orchestras in the evening and then by conducting, where had immediate success. After a stint as assistant conductor of the Orchestre Colonne, in 1899 he took over the musical direction at the Théâtre de l'Odéon.
Until the end of 1905, Caplet lived at the French Academy in Rome with the financial support the prize provided, though he took leave for long periods to attend performances in Berlin, Dresden, Hamburg. He secured the appointment through one of its co-founders, the impresario Henry Russell, whose wife Nina became a friend of Caplet during his time in Rome. He accepted the position to enhance his reputation as a conductor and to introduce contemporary French repertoire to the United States; for example, Debussy's L'enfant prodigue, the Children's Corner, Pelléas et Mélisande, and the incidental music to Le Martyre de saint Sébastien. Raoul Laparra's Habañera; Saint-Saens' Samson et Dalila; Louis Aubert's La Forêt Bleue; Humperdinck's Hansel and Gretel; Wagner's Tristan und Isolde and Die Meistersinger. In addition to operas he led the Verdi Requiem and incidental music to stage performances: Bizet's music for Daudet's L'Arlésienne and Fauré's music for Maeterlinck's Pelléas.
World War I
At the end of 1914, after he had completed two movements of a work that became Les Prières, Caplet enlisted in the French army and saw combat in the trenches at Verdun. He was wounded in May 1915 and was later promoted to sergeant. In 1917 he completed the third movement and the work premiered that same year in the small church of Ham, Picardy, accompanied by the distant sounds of artillery. His service ended in 1919. On 4 June of that year he married Geneviève Perruchon, a general's daughter who followed his work as a composer closely. They had a son in 1920.