His father Aimable Albert Dupré was titular organist of Saint-Ouen Abbey from 1911 till his death and a friend of Aristide Cavaillé-Coll, who built an organ in the family house when Marcel was 10 years old.

His mother Marie-Alice (née Chauvière) was a cellist who also gave music lessons, and his paternal uncle Henri Auguste Dupré was a violinist and violist.

Both of his grandfathers, Étienne-Pierre Chauvière (maître de chapelle at Saint-Patrice in Rouen and an operatic bass) and Aimable Auguste-Pompée Dupré (also a friend of Cavaillé-Coll) were also organists.

In 1954, after the death of Claude Delvincourt in a traffic accident, Dupré became director of the Paris Conservatoire; he held this post for only two years before the prevailing national laws forced him to retire at the age of 70.

He prepared study editions of the organ works of Bach, Handel, Mozart, Liszt, Mendelssohn, Schumann, César Franck, and Alexander Glazunov.

28) most of Dupré's music for the organ ranges from moderately to extremely difficult, and some of it makes almost impossible technical demands on the performer (e.g., Évocation op.

Nevertheless, his more successful works combine this virtuosity with a high degree of musical integrity, qualities found in compositions such as the Symphonie-Passion, the Chemin de la Croix, the Preludes and Fugues, the Esquisses and Évocation, and the Cortège et Litanie.

Although his emphasis as composer was the organ, Dupré's compositions also includes works for piano, orchestra and choir, as well as chamber music, and a number of transcriptions.