Henri Dutilleux was born in Angers, France, on 22 January 1916 into family deeply devoted to the arts. During his grammar school education, he studied piano, harmony and counterpoint with Victor Gallois at the Douai Conservatory. From 1933-1938 he attended the classes of Jean and Noël Gallon (harmony and counterpoint), Henri-Paul Busser (composition) and Maurice Emmanuel (history of music) at the Paris Conservatoire. After a little more than a year’s service as medical orderly in the army, Dutilleux ended up, in 1940, back in Paris, where he worked as a pianist, arranger and teacher. In 1942, he conducted the choir of the Paris Opera. From 1945 to 1963 he worked as Head of Music Production at the ORTF (French Broadcasting Service), a post from which he later resigned to concentrate on his own work as a composer.  He was appointed as Professor of Composition at the École Normale de Musique in Paris from 1961 to 1970, and taught at the Paris Conservatoire as an associate professor from 1970 to 1971.

André Jolivet, Darius Milhaud, Francis Poulenc and Georges Auric came to be amongst his personal acquaintances, though Dutilleux has always strictly refused to join groups or musical schools or even to be regarded as belonging to a particular group.  He composed symphonic works, solo concertos (cello, violin), chamber music and ballet scores which, since writing his first symphony in 1951, have secured him an international reputation.

He was awarded many prizes: in 1938 the "Grand Prix de Rome", in 1967 in France the "Grand Prix National de la Musique", and in 1994 the "Praemium Imperiale" for the body of his work, the "Cannes Classical Award" for The Shadows of Time (1999) and the "Grand prix 1999 de la presse musicale internationale". In 2005, he was awarded the Ernst von Siemens Musikpreis and Anne-Sophie Mutter's first recording of Sur le même accord has been awarded the Echo Klassik by the German Phono Society. In 2007, the MIDEM Lifetime Achievement Award was given to Dutilleux. He was a Member of the Conseil International de la Musique of the UNESCO, is an associate Member of the Royal Academy of Belgium and also
since 1981
an Honorary Member of the American Academy and Institute of Arts and Letters in New York. Since 1946 he has been married to the pianist Geneviève Joy.