Louis Aubert

French composer, singer, pianist and journalist Louis François Marie Aubert was born in Paramé in Brittany - now a district of the seaside resort Saint-Malo - on 19 February 1877. He was a child prodigy, and his parents sent him to study in Paris, where he became known for his voice, singing Gabriel Fauré's Pie Jesu. He also met Fauré at the conservatoire and attended the older composer's composition classes.

Aubert wrote church music, ballets, mélodies, popular songs, music for the stage and one opera, La fôret bleue (The Blue Forest, 1904-1911).

As a pianist he was the dedicatee of Maurice Ravel's Valses nobles et sentimentales, and gave the work's first performance in 1911.

As a writer, he contributed to the magazines Chantecler, Le Journal, Opéra and Paris-soir.

Louis Aubert died in Paris on 9 January 1968, aged ninety.