Charles Gounod

Charles-François Gounod(/ɡuːˈnoʊ/;French:[ʃaʁlfʁɑ̃swaɡuno];17 June 1818 – 18 October 1893), usually known asCharles Gounod,was a French composer. He wrote twelve operas, of which the most popular has always beenFaust(1859); hisRoméo et Juliette(1867) also remains in the international repertory. He composed a large amount of church music, many songs, and popular short pieces including his "Ave Maria"(an elaboration of aBachpiece) and "Funeral March of a Marionette".

Gounod in 1860 soon after his greatest success,Faust

Born in Paris into an artistic and musical family, Gounod was a student at theConservatoire de Parisand won France's most prestigious musical prize, thePrix de Rome.His studies took him to Italy, Austria and then Prussia, where he metFelix Mendelssohn,whose advocacy of the music of Bach was an early influence on him. He was deeply religious, and after his return to Paris, he briefly considered becoming a priest. He composed prolifically, writing church music, songs, orchestral music and operas.

Gounod's career was disrupted by theFranco-Prussian War.He moved to England with his family for refuge from the Prussian advance on Paris in 1870. After peace was restored in 1871 his family returned to Paris but he remained in London, living in the house of an amateur singer,Georgina Weldon,who became the controlling figure in his life. After nearly three years he broke away from her and returned to his family in France. His absence, and the appearance of younger French composers, meant that he was no longer at the forefront of French musical life; although he remained a respected figure he was regarded as old-fashioned during his later years, and operatic success eluded him. He died at his house inSaint-Cloud,near Paris, at the age of 75.

Few of Gounod's works remain in the regular international repertoire, but his influence on later French composers was considerable. In his music there is a strand of romantic sentiment that is continued in the operas ofJules Massenetand others; there is also a strand of classical restraint and elegance that influencedGabriel Fauré.Claude Debussywrote that Gounod represented the essential French sensibility of his time.

Life and career

Early years

Gounod was born on 17 June 1818 in theLatin Quarterof Paris, the second son of François Louis Gounod (1758–1823) and his wife Victoire,néeLemachois (1780–1858).François was a painter and art teacher; Victoire was a talented pianist, who had given lessons in her early years.The elder son, Louis Urbain (1807–1850), became a successful architect.Shortly after Charles's birth François was appointed official artist to theDuc de Berry,a member of the royal family, and the Gounods' home in Charles's early years was at thePalace of Versailles,where they were allotted an apartment.

After François's death in 1823, Victoire supported the family by returning to her old occupation as a piano teacher.The young Gounod attended a succession of schools in Paris, ending with theLycée Saint-Louis.He was a capable scholar, excelling in Latin and Greek.His mother, the daughter of a magistrate, hoped Gounod would pursue a secure career as a lawyer,but his interests were in the arts: he was a talented painter and outstandingly musical.Early influences on him, in addition to his mother's musical instruction, were operas, seen at theThéâtre-Italien:Rossini'sOtelloandMozart'sDon Giovanni.Of a performance of the latter in 1835 he later recalled, "I sat in one long rapture from the beginning of the opera to its close".Later in the same year he heard performances ofBeethoven'sPastoralandChoralsymphonies, which added "fresh impulse to my musical ardour".

Gounod aged 22, byDominique Ingres

While still at school Gounod studied music privately withAnton Reicha– who had been a friend of Beethoven and was described by a contemporary as "the greatest teacher then living"– and in 1836 he was admitted to theConservatoire de Paris.There he studied composition withFromental Halévy,Henri Berton,Jean LesueurandFerdinando Paerand piano withPierre Zimmerman.His various teachers made only a moderate impression on Gounod's musical development, but during his time at the Conservatoire he encounteredHector Berlioz.He later said that Berlioz and his music were among the greatest emotional influences of his youth.In 1838, after Lesueur's death, some of his former students collaborated to compose a commemorativemass;theAgnus Deiwas allocated to Gounod. Berlioz said of it, "The Agnus, for three solo voices with chorus, by M. Gounod, the youngest of Lesueur's pupils, is beautiful – very beautiful. Everything in it is novel and distinguished – melody, modulation, harmony. In this piece M. Gounod has given proof that we may expect everything of him".

Prix de Rome

In 1839, at his third attempt, Gounod won France's most prestigious musical prize, thePrix de Romefor composition, for hiscantataFernand.In doing so he was surpassing his father: François had taken the second prize in the Prix de Rome for painting in 1783.The Prix brought the winner two years' subsidised study at theFrench Institutein Rome and a further year in Austria and Germany. For Gounod this not only launched his musical career, but made impressions on him both spiritually and musically that stayed with him for the rest of his life.In the view of the musicologist Timothy Flynn, the Prix, with its time in Italy, Austria and Germany, was "arguably the most significant event in [Gounod's] career".He was fortunate that the director of the institute was the painterDominique Ingres,who had known François Gounod well and took his old friend's son under his wing.

Pauline Viardot

Fanny Hensel

Among the artistic notables the composer met in Rome were the singerPauline Viardotand the pianistFanny Hensel,sister ofFelix Mendelssohn.Viardot became of great help to Gounod in his later career, and through Hensel he got to know the music not only of her brother but also ofJ.S.Bach,whose music, long neglected, Mendelssohn was enthusiastically reviving.Gounod was also introduced to "various masterpieces of German music which I had never heard before".While in Italy, Gounod readGoethe'sFaust,and began sketching music for an operatic setting, which came to fruition over the next twenty years.Other music he composed during his three years' scholarship included some of his best-known songs, such as "Où voulez-vous aller?" (1839), "Le Soir" (1840–1842) and "Venise" (1842), and a setting of theMass ordinary,which was performed at the church ofSan Luigi dei Francesiin Rome.

In Rome, Gounod found his strong religious impulses increased under the influence of theDominicanpreacherHenri-Dominique Lacordaireand he was inspired by paintings in the city's churches.Unlike Berlioz, who had been unimpressed by the visual arts of Rome when he was at the Institute ten years earlier, Gounod was awed by the work ofMichelangelo.He also came to know and revere the sacred music ofPalestrina,which he described as a musical translation of Michelangelo's art.The music of some of his own Italian contemporaries did not appeal to him. He severely criticised operas byDonizetti,BelliniandMercadante,composers he described as merely "vines twisted around the great Rossinian trunk, without its vitality and majesty" and lacking Rossini's spontaneous melodic genius.

For the last year of his Prix de Rome scholarship, Gounod moved to Austria and Germany. At theCourt Operain Vienna he heardThe Magic Flutefor the first time, and his letters record his joy at living in the city where Mozart and Beethoven had worked.Count Ferdinand von Stockhammer, a leading patron of the arts in Vienna, arranged for Gounod's setting of theRequiem Massto be performed.It was warmly received, and its success led Stockhammer to commission a second Mass from the composer.

From Vienna, Gounod moved on toPrussia.He renewed his acquaintance with Fanny Hensel in Berlin and then went on toLeipzigto meet her brother. At their first encounter Mendelssohn greeted him, "So you're the madman my sister has told me about",but he devoted four days to entertaining the young man and gave him much encouragement.He arranged a special concert of theLeipzig Gewandhaus Orchestraso that his guest might hear theScottishSymphony,and played him some of the works of Bach on the organ of theThomaskirche.Reciprocating, Gounod played theDies Iraefrom his Viennese Requiem, and was gratified when Mendelssohn said of one passage that it was worthy to be signed byLuigi Cherubini.Gounod commented, "Words like this from such a master are a true honour and one wears them with more pride than many a ribbon".

Rising reputation

Missions étrangères de Paris

Gounod arrived home in Paris in May 1843. He took up a post, which his mother had helped to secure, as chapel master of the church of theMissions étrangères.For a winner of the Prix de Rome it was not a distinguished position. The organ of the church was poor, and the choir consisted of two basses, a tenor and a choirboy.To compound Gounod's difficulties, the regular congregation was hostile to his attempts to improve the music of the church.He expressed his views to a colleague:

It is high time the flag of liturgical art took the place occupied hitherto in our churches by that of profane melody. [Let us] banish all the romantic lollipops and saccharine piosities which have been ruining our taste for so long. Palestrina and Bach are the musical Fathers of the Church: our business is to prove ourselves loyal sons of theirs.

Despite his generally affable and compliant nature Gounod remained adamant; he gradually won his parishioners over, and served for most of the five-year term he had agreed to.During this period Gounod's religious feelings became increasingly strong. He was reunited with a childhood friend, now a priest, Charles Gay, and for a time he himself felt drawn to holy orders.In 1847 he began to study theology and philosophy at the seminary ofSt Sulpice,but before long his secular side asserted itself. Doubting his capacity for celibacy, he decided not to seek ordination and continued with his career as a musician.He later recalled:

The1848 Revolutionhad just broken out when I left my job as musical director at the Église des Missions étrangères. I had done it for four and a half years and I had learnt a lot from it, but as far as my future career was concerned it had left me vegetating without any prospects. There's only one place where a composer can make a name for himself: the theatre.

The outset of Gounod's theatrical career was greatly helped by his reacquaintance with Pauline Viardot in Paris in 1849. Viardot, then at the peak of her fame, was able to secure for him a commission for a full-length opera. In this Gounod was exceptionally fortunate: a novice composer in the 1840s would usually, at the most, be asked to write a one-actcurtain raiser.Gounod and his librettist,Émile Augier,createdSapho,drawing on Ancient Greek legend. It was intended as a departure from the three genres of opera then prevalent in Paris –Italian opera,grand operaandopéra comique.It later came to be regarded as the first of a new type,opéra lyrique,but at the time it was thought by some to be a throwback to the operas ofGluck,written sixty or seventy years earlier.After difficulties with the censor, who found the text politically suspect and too erotic,Saphowas given at theParis Opéraat theSalle Le Peletieron 16 April 1851.It was reviewed by Berlioz in his capacity as a music critic; he found some parts "extremely beautiful… the highest poetic level of drama", and others "hideous, unbearable, horrible".It did not draw the public and closed after nine performances.The opera received a single performance at theRoyal Opera Housein London later in the same year, with Viardot again in the title role. The music received more praise than the libretto, and the performers received more than either, butThe Morning Postrecorded, "The opera, we regret to say, was received very coldly".

Gounod's wife, Anna, by Ingres, 1859

In April 1851 Gounod married Anna Zimmerman, daughter of his former piano professor at the Conservatoire.The marriage led to a breach with Viardot; the Zimmermans refused to have anything to do with her, for reasons that are not clear. Gounod's biographer Steven Huebner refers to rumours about a liaison between the singer and composer, but adds that "the real story remains murky".Gounod was appointed superintendent of instruction in singing to the communal schools in the city of Paris, and from 1852 to 1860 he was director of a prominent choral society, the Orphéon de la Ville de Paris.He also frequently stood in for his elderly and often ill father-in-law, giving music lessons to private pupils. One of them,Georges Bizet,found Gounod's teaching inspiring, praised "his warm and paternal interest" and remained a lifelong admirer.

Despite the brevity ofSapho's run, the piece advanced Gounod's reputation, and theComédie-Françaisecommissioned him to write incidental music forFrançois Ponsard's five-act verse tragedyUlysse(1852), based on theOdyssey.The score included twelve choruses as well as orchestral interludes. It was not a successful production: Ponsard's play was not well received, and the audience at the Comédie-Française had little interest in music.During the 1850s Gounod composed his two symphonies for full orchestra and one of his best-known religious works, theMesse solennelle en l'honneur de Sainte-Cécile.It was written for theSt Cecilia's day celebrations of 1855 atSaint-Eustache,and in Flynn's view demonstrates Gounod's success in "blending the operatic style with church music – a task at which many of his colleagues tried and failed".

As well as church and concert music, Gounod was composing operas, beginning withLa Nonne sanglante(The Bloody Nun, 1854), a melodramatic ghost story with a libretto that Berlioz had tried and failed to set, and thatAuber,Meyerbeer,Verdiand others had rejected.The librettists,Eugène ScribeandGermain Delavigne,reworked the text for Gounod and the piece opened at the Opéra on 18 October 1854.The critics derided the libretto but praised the music and production; the work was doing well at the box-office until it fell victim to musical politics. The director of the Opéra,Nestor Roqueplan,was supplanted by his enemy,François-Louis Crosnier,who describedLa Nonne sanglanteas "filth" and shut the production down after its eleventh performance.

Operatic successes and failures

In January 1856 Gounod was appointed a knight of theLegion of Honour.In June of that year he and his wife had the first of their two children, a son Jean (1856–1935).(Their daughter Jeanne (1863–1945) was born seven years later.) In 1858 Gounod composed his next opera,Le Médecin malgré lui.With a good libretto byJules BarbierandMichel Carré,faithful to theMolière comedyon which it is based, it gained excellent reviews,but its good reception was overshadowed for Gounod by the death of his mother the day after the premiere.At the time an initial run of 100 performances was considered a success;Le Médecin malgré luiachieved that and was revived in Paris and elsewhere during the rest of the 19th century and into the 20th.In 1893 the BritishMusical Timespraised its "irresistible gaiety".Huebner comments that the opera does not deserve the relative neglect into which it has since fallen.

The palace of Méphistophélès,Faust,1859

With Barbier and Carré, Gounod turned from French comedy to German legend forFaust.The three had worked on the piece in 1856, but it had to be shelved to avoid clashing with a rival (non-operatic)Faustat another theatre. Returning to it in 1858 Gounod completed the score, rehearsals began towards the end of the year and the opera opened at theThéâtre-Lyriquein March 1859.One critic reported that it was presented "under circumstances of uncommon excitement and expectation";another praised the work but doubted if it would have enough popular appeal to be a commercial triumph.The composer later recalled that the opera "did not strike the public very much at first",but after some revision and with a good deal of vigorous promotion by Gounod's publisher, Antoine de Choudens, it became an international success. There were productions in Vienna in 1861, and in Berlin, London and New York in 1863.Fausthas remained Gounod's most popular opera and one of the staples of the operatic repertoire.

Over the next eight years Gounod composed five more operas, all with Barbier or Carré or both.Philémon et Baucis(1860) andLa Colombe(The Dove, 1860) were opéras comiques based on stories byJean de La Fontaine.The first was an attempt to take advantage of a vogue for mildly satirical comedies in mythological dress started byJacques OffenbachwithOrphée aux enfers(1858).The opera had originally been intended for the theatre atBaden-Baden,but Offenbach and his authors expanded it for its eventual first performance, in Paris at the Théâtre Lyrique.La Colombe,also written for Baden-Baden, was premiered there and later expanded for its first Paris production (1886).

After these two moderate successes,Gounod had an outright failure,La Reine de Saba(1862), a grand opera with an exotic setting. The piece was lavishly mounted, and the premiere was attended by the EmperorNapoleon IIIand the EmpressEugénie,but the reviews were damning and the run finished after fifteen performances.The composer, depressed by the failure, sought comfort in a long trip to Rome with his family. The city enchanted him as much as ever: in Huebner's words "renewed exposure to Rome's close entwining of Christianity and classical culture energized him for the travails of his career back in Paris".

Caroline Carvalhoas Juliette, 1867

Gounod's next opera wasMireille(1864), a five-act tragedy in aProvençalpeasant setting. Gounod travelled to Provence to absorb the local atmosphere of the various settings of the work and to meet the author of the original story,Frédéric Mistral.Some critics have seen the piece as a forerunner ofverismoopera, although one that emphasises elegance over sensationalism.The opera was not a great success at first; there were strong objections from some quarters that Gounod had given full tragic status to a mere farmer's daughter.After some revision it became popular in France, and remained in the regular opéra comique repertoire into the 20th century.

In 1866 Gounod was elected to theAcadémie des Beaux-Artsand was promoted within the Legion of Honour.During the 1860s his non-operatic works included a Mass (1862), aStabat Mater(1867), twenty shorter pieces of liturgical or other religious music, two cantatas – one religious, one secular – and aMarche pontificalefor the anniversary of the coronation ofPius IX(1869), later adopted as the official anthem of theVatican City.

Gounod's last opera of the 1860s wasRoméo et Juliette(1867), with a libretto that followsShakespeare's playfairly closely.The piece was a success from the outset, with box-office receipts boosted by the large number of visitors to Paris for theExposition Universelle.Within a year of the premiere it was staged in major opera houses in continental Europe, Britain and the US. Other thanFaustit remains the only Gounod opera to be frequently staged internationally.

London

After the outbreak of theFranco-Prussian Warin 1870, Gounod moved with his family from their home inSaint-Cloud,outside Paris, first to the countryside nearDieppeand then to England. The house in Saint-Cloud was wrecked by the advancing Prussians in the build-up to theSiege of Paris.To earn a living in London, Gounod wrote music for a British publisher; in Victorian Britain there was a great demand for religious and quasi-religious drawing room ballads, and he was happy to provide them.

Gounod accepted an invitation from the organising committee of theAnnual International Exhibitionto write a choral piece for its grand opening at theRoyal Albert Hallon 1 May 1871. As a result of its favourable reception he was appointed director of the new Royal Albert Hall Choral Society, which, withQueen Victoria's approval, was subsequently renamed theRoyal Choral Society.He also conducted orchestral concerts for thePhilharmonic Societyand at theCrystal Palace,St James's Halland other venues.Proponents of English music complained that Gounod neglected native composers in his concerts,but his own music was popular and widely praised. The music critic ofThe Times,J. W. Davison,rarely pleased by modern music, was not an admirer,butHenry ChorleyofThe Athenaeumwas an enthusiastic supporter,and writers inThe Musical World,The Standard,The Pall Mall GazetteandThe Morning Postcalled Gounod a great composer.

Georgina Weldonin a Victorian advertisement for soap

In February 1871,Julius Benedict,the director of the Philharmonic Society, introduced Gounod to a singer and music teacher,Georgina Weldon.She quickly became a dominant influence in Gounod's professional and personal life. There was much inconclusive conjecture about the nature of their relationship. Once peace was restored in France during 1871, Anna Gounod returned home with her mother and children, but Gounod stayed on in London, living in the Weldons' house.Weldon introduced him to competitive business practices with publishers, negotiating substantial royalties, but eventually pushed such matters too far and involved him in litigation brought by his publisher, which the composer lost.

Gounod lived in the Weldons' household for nearly three years. The French newspapers speculated about his motives for remaining in London; they speculated the more when it was suggested that he had declined theFrench President'sinvitation to return and succeed Auber as director of the Conservatoire.In early 1874 his relations with Davison ofThe Times,never cordial, descended into personal hostility.The pressures on him in England and the comments about him in France brought Gounod to a state of nervous collapse, and in May 1874 his friend Gaston de Beaucourt came to London and took him back home to Paris.Weldon was furious when she discovered that Gounod had left, and she made many difficulties for him later, including holding on to manuscripts he had left at her house and publishing a tendentious and self-justifying account of their association. She later brought a lawsuit against him which effectively prevented him from coming back to Britain after May 1885.

Later years

Cinq-Mars,1877

The musical scene in France had altered considerably during Gounod's absence. After the death of Berlioz in 1869, Gounod had been generally regarded as France's leading composer.He returned to a France in which, though still well respected, he was no longer in the vanguard of French music.A rising generation, including members of the newSociété Nationale de Musiquesuch as Bizet,Emmanuel Chabrier,Gabriel FauréandJules Massenet,was establishing itself.He was not embittered, and was well disposed to younger composers, even when he did not enjoy their works.Of the later generation he was most impressed byCamille Saint-Saëns,seventeen years his junior, whom he is said to have dubbed "the French Beethoven".

Resuming operatic composition, Gounod finishedPolyeucte,on which he had been working in London, and during 1876 composedCinq-Mars,a four-act historical drama set in the time ofCardinal Richelieu.The latter was staged first at theOpéra-Comiquein April 1877, and had a mediocre run of 56 performances.Polyeucte,a religious subject close to the composer's heart, did worse when it was given at the Opéra the following year. In the words of Gounod's biographerJames Harding,"AfterPolyeuctehad been martyred on twenty-nine occasions the box-office ruled that enough was enough. He was never resuscitated. "

The last of Gounod's operas,Le Tribut de Zamora(1881), ran for 34 nights,and in 1884 he made a revision ofSapho,which lasted for 30 performances at the Opéra.He reworked the role of Glycère, the deceitful villainess of the piece, with the image of Weldon in his mind: "I dreamt of the model… who was terrifying in satanic ugliness"Throughout these disappointmentsFaustcontinued to attract the public, and in November 1888 Gounod conducted the 500th performance at the Opéra.

Gounod in old age byNadar,1890

Away from opera, Gounod wrote the large-scaleMesse du Sacré-Coeur de Jésusin 1876 and ten other masses between then and 1893.His greatest popular successes in his later career were religious works, the two large oratoriosLa Rédemption(1882) andMors et vita(1885), both composed for and premiered at theBirmingham Triennial Music Festivalin England.The two were enthusiastically taken up by the British public and on the continent, and in their day were widely ranked with the oratorios ofHandeland Mendelssohn.The Philharmonic Society in London unsuccessfully sought to commission a symphony from the composer in 1885 (the commission eventually went to Saint-Saëns);fragments of a third symphony exist from late in Gounod's career, but are thought to date from a few years later.

Gounod lived his last years at Saint-Cloud, composing sacred music and writing his memoirs and essays. His oratorioSaint Francois d'Assisewas completed in 1891. On 15 October 1893, after returning home from playing the organ for Mass at his local church, he suffered a stroke while working on a setting of the Requiem in memory of his grandson Maurice, who had died in infancy. After being in a coma for three days Gounod died on 18 October, at the age of 75.

A state funeral was held atL'église de la Madeleine,Paris, on 27 October 1893. Among thepallbearerswereAmbroise Thomas,Victorien Sardouand the future French PresidentRaymond Poincaré.Fauré conducted the music, which at Gounod's wish was entirely vocal, with no organ or orchestral accompaniment. After the service, Gounod's remains were taken in procession to theCimetière d'Auteuilnear Saint-Cloud, where they were interred in the family vault.

Music

Main article:List of compositions by Charles Gounod

Gounod is best known for his operas – in particularFaust.Celebrated during his lifetime, Gounod's religious music became unfashionable in the 20th century and little of it is regularly heard. His songs, an important influence on later French composers, are less neglected, although only a few are well known.Michael Kennedywrites that Gounod's music has "considerable melodic charm and felicity, with admirable orchestration". He adds that Gounod was "not really a master of the large and imposing forms, in this way perhaps being a French parallel toSullivan".There is wide agreement among commentators that he was at his finest more often in the earlier decades of his career than later.Robert Orledgejudges that in the 1850s and 1860s Gounod introduced to French opera a combination of "tender, lyrical charm, consummate craftsmanship, and genuine musical characterization", but his later works tend to "sentimentality and banality... in his quest for inspired simplicity".

Cooperwrites that as Gounod grew older he began to suffer from "what might be described as the samecher grand maîtrecomplex as infectedHugoandTennyson".Huebner observes that the fact that Gounod's reputation began to wane even during his lifetime does not detract from his place among the most respected and prolific composers in France during the second half of the 19th century.

Operas

Gounod wrote twelve operas, in a variety of the genres then prevailing in France.Sapho(1851) was an early example ofopéra lyrique,smaller-scale and more intimate thangrand operabutthrough-composed,without the spoken dialogue ofopéra comique.Berlioz wrote of it, "Most of the choruses I found imposing and simple in accent; the whole third act seemed to me very beautiful... But the quartet in the first act, the duet and trio in the second, where the passions of the principal characters break out with such force, absolutely revolted me".A more recent reviewer remarks on Gounod's "genuine talent for music-drama... exercised in the Quartet of Act 1 where each character has an independent part, making effective counterpoint in dramatic as well as musical terms".Gounod revised the work in 1858 and again, more radically, in 1884, but it was never a success. The one fairly well known number from the score, Sapho's "O ma lyre immortelle", is a reworking of a song he had composed in 1841.

Gounod in comic vein: the "gurgling" (petits glougloux) couplets fromLe Médecin malgré lui(1858)

La Nonne sanglante(1854), a work on a larger scale thanSapho,suffers from a libretto that Huebner describes as an "unhappy blend of historico-political grand opera and the supernatural". He observes that in the traditions of grand opera it features processions, ballets, large ensemble numbers, and "a plot where the love interest is set against a more or less clearly drawn historical backdrop". Announcing a rare revival of the work in 2018, the Opéra-Comique described the score as "refined, sombre, and labyrinthine". A reviewer praised its "verve and imagination... colourful and percussive music, well adapted to evoke the horror of the situations... quite voluptuous in the arias (in a score that one can nevertheless find rather academic in parts)".

Cooper classesLe Médecin malgré lui(1858) as one of Gounod's finest works, "witty, quick-moving and full of life".In complete contrast to its predecessor, it is a three-act comedy, regarded as a masterpiece byRichard StraussandIgor Stravinsky.Cooper says of the score that Gounod seems to have learned more from Mozart than from Rossini or Auber, and to have "divined by instinct the great comic possibilities of what passed at that time for a ferociously 'learned' style, namely counterpoint."The piece held its place in the repertory during the latter part of the 19th century, but by the timeSergei Diaghilevrevived it in 1924 Gounod was out of fashion. In Stravinsky's words, "[Diaghilev's] dream of a Gounod 'revival' failed in the face of an indifferent and snobbish public who did not dare applaud the music of a composer not accepted by the avant-garde".For his revival Diaghilev commissionedErik Satieto composerecitativesto replace the original spoken dialogue, and that version is sometimes used in the occasional modern productions of the piece, such as that byLaurent Pellyat theGrand Théâtre de Genèvein 2016.

The finale of theFaustballet music, composed for large orchestra

Faust(1859) appealed to the public not only because of its tunefulness but also for its naturalness.In contrast with grand operas by Gounod's older contemporaries, such as Meyerbeer'sLes Huguenotsor Rossini'sWilliam Tell,Faust in its original 1859 form tells its story without spectacular ballets, opulent staging, grand orchestral effects or conventionally theatrical emotion."The charm ofFaustlay in its naturalness, its simplicity, the sincerity and directness of its emotional appeal "(Cooper).The authors labelledFaust"a lyric drama", and some commentators find the lyrical scenes stronger than the dramatic and supernatural ones.Among the best known numbers from the piece are Marguerite's "Jewel" song, the Soldiers' Chorus, Faust's aria "Salut! Demeure chaste et pure" and Méphistophélès' "Le Veau d'or" and Sérénade.Another popular song is Valentin's "Avant de quitter ces lieux", which Gounod, rather reluctantly, wrote for the first London production, where the star baritone required an extra number.Among the popular numbers from the score is the ballet music, written when the Opéra – where a ballet interlude was mandatory – took over presentation of the work in 1869. The ballet makes full use of the Opéra's large orchestral resources; it is now frequently omitted in live performances, particularly in productions outside France,but the ballet suite became a popular concert item, independent of the opera.The recitatives generally used instead of the original spoken dialogue were composed by Gounod in an early revision of the score.

Writing ofPhilémon et Baucis,Huebner comments that there is little dramatic music in the score and that most of the numbers are "purely decorative accretions to the spoken dialogue". For the 1876 revival at the Opéra-Comique, which established the work in the repertory there until the Second World War, Gounod reduced it to two acts. For a revival by Diaghilev in 1924, the youngFrancis Poulenccomposed recitatives to replace the spoken dialogue.The music critic Andrew Clements writes ofLa Colombethat it is not a profound work, but is "well filled with the kind of ingratiating tunes that Gounod could turn out so effectively".AlthoughLa Reine de Sabawas a failure, it contains three numbers that gained moderate popularity: the Queen's big aria‚ "Plus grand dans son obscurité", King Solomon's "Sous les pieds d'une femme" and the tenor solo "Faiblesse de la race humaine".

Mireille(1865) was a moderate success, and although it did not emulateFaustin becoming an international hit, it remained popular in France into the 20th century. The most famous number, the waltz-song "O légère hirondelle", a favourite display piece for manycoloraturasopranos, was written to order for the prima-donna of the Théâtre Lyrique a year after the premiere. Another popular number is Ourrias's swaggering "Si les filles d'Arles" described by the critic Patrick O'Connor as an attempt by the composer to repeat the success of Méphistophélès'Veau d'orfromFaust.Gounod revised the work, even giving it a happy ending, but in the 1930sReynaldo HahnandHenri Büsserprepared a new edition for the Opéra-Comique, restoring the work to its original tragic five acts.

Gounod's last successful opera wasRoméo et Juliette(1867).Gustav Kobbéwrote five decades later that the work had always been more highly regarded in France than elsewhere. He said that it had never been popular in England except as a vehicle forAdelina Pattiand thenNellie Melba,and that in New York it had only featured regularly at theMetropolitan Operawhen it was under the control ofMaurice Grauin the late 19th-century.Some reviewers thought it inappropriate that Juliet was allotted a waltz song ( "Je veux vivre, dans ce rêve" ),but Romeo's "Ah! levè-toi, soleil" was judged one of Gounod's finest tenor arias.Although never as popular asFaust,Roméo et Juliettecontinues to hold the stage internationally.Gounod had no further success with new operas. His three attempts,Cinq-Mars(1877),Polyeucte(1878), andLe Tribut de Zamora(1881), were all taken off after brief runs, and have seldom been seen since.

Orchestral and chamber music

The opening of Gounod's Second Symphony: "The introductory Adagio in the key of E flat speaks of Beethoven'sEroica".

The two symphonies, in D major and E-flat major, cannot be precisely dated. The first was completed at some time before 1855 and the second by 1856.Like many other composers of the mid-19th-century Gounod found Beethoven's shadow daunting when contemplating the composition of a symphony, and there was even a feeling among the French musical public that composers could write operas or symphonies but not both.The influence of Beethoven is apparent in Gounod's two symphonies, and the musical scholarRoger Nicholsand the composer's biographerGérard Condéalso find a debt to Mendelssohn'sItalianSymphonyin the slow movement of the First.Gounod's sometime pupil Bizet took the First as his model for his ownSymphony in C(1855). Late in life Gounod started but did not complete a Third Symphony. A complete slow movement and much of a first movement survive.Other orchestral works include the "Funeral March of a Marionette"(1879), an orchestration of an 1872 solo piano piece.

ThePetite Symphonie(1885), written for nine wind instruments, follows the classical, four-movement pattern, with a slow introduction to thesonata formfirst movement. The commentator Diether Stepphun refers to its "cheerfully contemplative and gallant wit, with all the experience of human and musical maturity".Gounod'sAve Mariagained considerable popularity. It consists of adescantsuperimposed over a version of the first prelude of Bach'sThe Well-Tempered Clavier.In its original form it is for violin with piano; the words of theHail Marywere added to the melody later.

Religious music

Gounod's output of liturgical and other religious music was prolific, including 23 masses, more than 40 other Latin liturgical settings, more than 50 religious songs and part-songs, and seven cantatas or oratorios.During his lifetime his religious music was regarded in many quarters more highly than his most popular operas. Saint-Saëns wrote, "When, in the far-distant future, the operas of Gounod shall have been received into the dusty sanctuary of the libraries, the Mass of St Cecilia, theRedemption,andMors et Vita,will still endure ".In the 20th century views changed considerably. In 1916,Gustave Chouquetand Adolphe Jullien wrote of "a monotony and heaviness which must weary the best-disposed audience".In 1918, in a centenary tribute to Gounod,Julien TiersotdescribedLa RédemptionandMors et Vitaas "imbued with pure and elevated lyricism",but this view did not prevail. Other critics have referred to "the ooze of the erotic priest" and called the oratorios "the height of nineteenth-century hypocritical piety".

Orledge judges the early masses as the best of Gounod's religious music. He comments that the composer moved away from "Palestrinian austerity" towards "a more fluid, operatic style" in hisMesse solennelle de Sainte Cécile(1855).He comments that in general Gounod's work in the 1860s "became more Italianate, while retaining its French attributes of precision, taste, and elegance".

Songs

"Le Vallon": an early song by Gounod, from c. 1840

Gounod's songs are by far the most numerous of his compositions: he wrote more than a hundred French secular songs and thirty more in English or Italian for the British market.The songs come from every stage of his career, but most of the best are generally considered to be from the earlier years.Maurice Ravelcalled Gounod "the true founder of themélodiein France ".The pianist and musical scholarGraham Johnson,quoting this, adds that although Berlioz might be thought to have a claim to that title, it was Gounod who brought themélodiewidespread popularity in France:

Gounod's gift for singable melody enabled him to smuggle the art song – a high-born and demanding infant – into the homes and hearts of the French middle class where operatic airs, operetta, romance, and chansonnette had previously held sway.

Johnson adds that Gounod brought to themélodie"those qualities of elegance, ingenuity,sensibilité,and a concern for literature which together constitute the classic qualities of French song "in mélodies that display the composer's" melodic genius, his talent for creating long flowing lines (only surpassed by Fauré), and his instinct for the harmonicjuste".

From his earliest period, during and just after his time as a Prix de Rome student, Gounod's songs include some of his best, in the view of both Huebner and Johnson.Examples include "Où voulez-vous aller?" (words byGautier,1839) – which challenged comparison with Berlioz, who had already set the poem in hisLes Nuits d'été– and "Venice" (Musset), 1842, described by Johnson as "astonishingly evocative with its turbulent interludes painting that city's ability both to intoxicate and disturb".Other early songs such as "Le vallon" and "Le soir" (both to words byLamartine,c. 1840) demonstrate Gounod's ability to cope with large-scaleRomanticverse.

The songs of Gounod's middle and later years are in the main judged less impressive.Johnson compares Gounod with Mendelssohn in terms of artistic decline, suggesting that their celebrity as establishment figures led them to adopt a style "suitable for the pomposities of gigantic music festivals."Nevertheless, Johnson observes that some of the songs written during Gounod's stay in England in the 1870s are excellent of their kind, such as "Oh happy home" (words byEdward Maitland,1872), "If thou art sleeping, maiden" (Longfellow,1872 or 1873) and "The Worker" (Frederic Weatherly,1873).Gounod's time in Britain also produced arrangements of Scottish folk songs, and settings of poetry byWordsworth,Charles Kingsley,Thomas Hood,Byron,ShelleyandFrancis Palgrave.

Legacy

Although only a comparatively small amount of Gounod's music endures in the regular musical repertoire, his influence on later French composers was important. In Cooper's words, "he was more than an individual composer: he was the voice of a deep and permanent strain in the French character... [A] whole range of emotion, which had been voiceless before, had found in him its ideal expression, and his influence will perhaps never quite disappear for that reason".Cooper suggests that the two sides of Gounod's music nature influenced later French composers as different as Fauré and Massenet, the first drawing on and refining Gounod's classical purity and refinement, and the latter drawing on his romantic and voluptuous side (so much so that he was dubbed "la fille de Gounod").Ravel's comment on Gounod's importance tomélodieis quoted above, andDebussywrote, "Gounod, for all his weaknesses, is essential… the art of Gounod represents a moment in French sensibility. Whether one wants to or not, that kind of thing is not forgotten".

Notes, references and sources

Sources

Books

• Berlioz, Hector;Gautier, Théophile(1904) [1856].Les nuits d'été.Leipzig: Breitkopf & Härtel.OCLC611290556.
• Chouquet, Gustave;Jullien, Adolphe (1916)."Gounod, Charles François".InGeorge Grove;J. A. Fuller Maitland(eds.).A Dictionary of Music and Musicians(2nd ed.). Philadelphia: Theodore Presser.OCLC877994749.
• Cooper, Martin(1957). "Charles François Gounod". InA. L. Bacharach(ed.).The Music Masters.Vol. 2. London: Penguin.OCLC851644.
• Davison, Henry(1912).Music During the Victorian Era.London: Reeves.OCLC1049690727.
• Deruchie, Andrew (2013).The French Symphony at the Fin de siècle.Rochester, New York, and Woodbridge, Suffolk: University of Rochester Press, and Boydell and Brewer.ISBN978-1-58046-382-9.
• Fifield, Christopher(2016).The German Symphony between Beethoven and Brahms.London: Routledge.ISBN978-1-317-03040-9.
• Fisher, Burton (2006).Gounod's Faust.Miami: Opera Journeys.ISBN978-1-930841-28-4.
• Flynn, Timothy (2016).Charles François Gounod: A Research and Information Guide.New York and London: Routledge Taylor and Francis.ISBN978-1-138-97019-9.
• Foreman, Lewis; Susan Foreman (2005).London: A Musical Gazetteer.New Haven and London: Yale University Press.ISBN978-0-300-10402-8.
• Gounod, Charles (1896). W. Hely-Hutchinson (ed.).Autobiographical Reminiscences.London: Heinemann.OCLC1936009.
• Harding, James(1973).Gounod.London: Allen and Unwin.ISBN978-0-04-780021-4.
• Hendrie, Gerald (1971).Mendelssohn's Rediscovery of Bach.Bletchley: Open University Press.ISBN978-0-335-00516-1.
• Hillemacher, Paul(1905).Charles Gounod.Les musiciens célèbres (in French). Paris: Laurens.OCLC166055265.
• Holden, Amanda(1995) [1993].The Penguin Opera Guide.London: Penguin.ISBN978-0-14-051385-1.
• Huebner, Steven (1990).The Operas of Charles Gounod.Oxford: Oxford University Press.ISBN978-0-19-315329-5.
• Huebner, Steven (2001). "Gounod, Charles-François".Grove Music Online(8th ed.).Oxford University Press.doi:10.1093/gmo/9781561592630.article.40694.ISBN978-1-56159-263-0.(subscription required)
• Johnson, Graham(2002).A French Song Companion.Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press.ISBN978-0-19-924966-4.
• Jones, J. Barrie (1989).Gabriel Fauré: A Life in Letters.London: B T Batsford.ISBN978-0-7134-5468-0.
• Kendall-Davies, Barbara (2012).The Life and Work of Pauline Viardot Garcia: the Years of Grace, Volume 2, 1863–1910.Newcastle upon Tyne: Cambridge Scholars Publishing.ISBN978-1-4438-6494-7.
• Kobbé, Gustav(1954) [1919].The Earl of Harewood(ed.).Kobbé's Complete Opera Book.London and New York: Putnam.OCLC987953182.
• Lacombe, Hervé(2001).The Keys to French Opera in the Nineteenth Century.Berkeley: University of California Press.OCLC1035918078.
• March, Ivan;Edward Greenfield;Robert Layton; Paul Czajkowski (2008).The Penguin Guide to Recorded Classical Music 2009.London: Penguin.ISBN978-0-141-03336-5.
• Nectoux, Jean-Michel(1991).Gabriel Fauré: A Musical Life.Roger Nichols(trans). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.ISBN978-0-521-23524-2.
• Noël, Édouard[in French];Stoullig, Edmond[in French].Les Annales du théâtre et de la musique(in French). Paris: Charpentier.:
  • Troisième année (1878),OCLC81973146
  • Septième année (1882),OCLC190751863
  • Dixième année (1885),OCLC68567504
• Prod'homme, Jacques-Gabriel;Alfred Dandelot (1911).Gounod: sa vie et ses oeuvres d'apres des documents inédits(in French). Paris: Delagrave.:
  • Volume 1.OCLC32767843
  • Volume 2.OCLC123185385
• Rushton, Julian(2001).The Music of Berlioz.Oxford: Oxford University Press.ISBN978-0-19-816690-0.

Journals

• Cooper, Martin(January 1940). "Charles Gounod and His Influence on French Music".Music & Letters.21(1): 50–59.doi:10.1093/ml/XXI.1.50.JSTOR727621.(subscription required)
• Curtiss, Mina (January 1952). "Gounod beforeFaust".The Musical Quarterly.38(1): 48–67.doi:10.1093/mq/XXXVIII.1.48.JSTOR739593.(subscription required)
• Tiersot, Julien(July 1918)."Charles Gounod: A Centennial Tribute".The Musical Quarterly.4(3): 409–439.doi:10.1093/mq/IV.3.409.JSTOR738223.

External links

• "Charles Gounod: Works".Retrieved31 March2005.
• Works by Charles GounodatProject Gutenberg
• Free scores by Charles Gounodat theInternational Music Score Library Project(IMSLP)
• Charles Gounod recordingsat theDiscography of American Historical Recordings.