Charles-François Gounod (; ; 17 June 181818 October 1893), usually known as Charles Gounod, was a French composer. He wrote twelve operas, of which the most popular has always been ''
Faust'' (1859); his ''
Roméo 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
The Hail Mary ( la, Ave Maria) is a traditional Christian prayer addressing Mary, the mother of Jesus. The prayer is based on two biblical passages featured in the Gospel of Luke: the Angel Gabriel's visit to Mary (the Annunciation) and Mary's s ...
(an elaboration of a
Bach piece), and ''
Funeral March of a Marionette
Funeral March of a Marionette (French: ) is a short piece by Charles Gounod. It was originally written for solo piano in 1872 and orchestrated in 1879. It is perhaps best known as the theme music for the television program ''Alfred Hitchcock Presen ...
''.
Born in Paris into an artistic and musical family Gounod was a student at the
Conservatoire de Paris
The Conservatoire de Paris (), also known as the Paris Conservatory, is a college of music and dance founded in 1795. Officially known as the Conservatoire National Supérieur de Musique et de Danse de Paris (CNSMDP), it is situated in the avenue ...
and won France's most prestigious musical prize, the
Prix de Rome. His studies took him to Italy, Austria and then Prussia, where he met
Felix Mendelssohn
Jakob Ludwig Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy (3 February 18094 November 1847), born and widely known as Felix Mendelssohn, was a German composer, pianist, organist and conductor of the early Romantic period. Mendelssohn's compositions include sy ...
, 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 the
Franco-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 in
Saint-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 of
Jules Massenet
Jules Émile Frédéric Massenet (; 12 May 1842 – 13 August 1912) was a French composer of the Romantic era best known for his operas, of which he wrote more than thirty. The two most frequently staged are '' Manon'' (1884) and ''Werther' ...
and others; there is also a strand of classical restraint and elegance that influenced
Gabriel Fauré
Gabriel Urbain Fauré (; 12 May 1845 – 4 November 1924) was a French composer, organist, pianist and teacher. He was one of the foremost French composers of his generation, and his musical style influenced many 20th-century composers ...
.
Claude Debussy
(Achille) Claude Debussy (; 22 August 1862 – 25 March 1918) was a French composer. He is sometimes seen as the first Impressionist composer, although he vigorously rejected the term. He was among the most influential composers of the ...
wrote that Gounod represented the essential French sensibility of his time.
Life and career
Early years
Gounod was born on 17 June 1818 in the
Latin Quarter of Paris, the second son of François Louis Gounod (1758–1823) and his wife Victoire, ''née'' Lemachois (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 the ]Duc de Berry
Duke of Berry (french: Duc de Berry) or Duchess of Berry (french: Duchesse de Berry) was a title in the Peerage of France. The Duchy of Berry, centred on Bourges, was originally created as an appanage for junior members of the French royal family ...
, a member of the royal family, and the Gounods' home in Charles's early years was at the Palace of Versailles
The Palace of Versailles ( ; french: Château de Versailles ) is a former royal residence built by King Louis XIV located in Versailles, Yvelines, Versailles, about west of Paris, France. The palace is owned by the French Republic and since 19 ...
, 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 the Lycée Saint-Louis
The lycée Saint-Louis is a highly selective post-secondary school located in the 6th arrondissement of Paris, in the Latin Quarter. It is the only public French lycée exclusively dedicated to providing ''classes préparatoires aux grandes éc ...
. He was a capable scholar, excelling in Latin and Greek.["Charles Gounod"]
''The Musical Times
''The Musical Times'' is an academic journal of classical music edited and produced in the United Kingdom and currently the oldest such journal still being published in the country.
It was originally created by Joseph Mainzer in 1842 as ''Mainze ...
'', 1 November 1893, pp. 649–650 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 the Théâtre-Italien: Rossini's '']Otello
''Otello'' () is an opera in four acts by Giuseppe Verdi to an Italian libretto by Arrigo Boito, based on Shakespeare's play ''Othello''. It was Verdi's penultimate opera, first performed at the Teatro alla Scala, Milan, on 5 February 1887.
Th ...
'' and Mozart's ''Don Giovanni
''Don Giovanni'' (; K. 527; Vienna (1788) title: , literally ''The Rake Punished, or Don Giovanni'') is an opera in two acts with music by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart to an Italian libretto by Lorenzo Da Ponte. Its subject is a centuries-old Spanis ...
''. 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 of Beethoven's ''Pastoral'' and ''Choral'' symphonies, which added "fresh impulse to my musical ardour".
While still at school Gounod studied music privately with Anton Reicha
Anton (Antonín, Antoine) Joseph Reicha (Rejcha) (26 February 1770 – 28 May 1836) was a Czech-born, Bavarian-educated, later naturalized French composer and music theorist. A contemporary and lifelong friend of Beethoven, he is now best reme ...
– 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 the Conservatoire de Paris
The Conservatoire de Paris (), also known as the Paris Conservatory, is a college of music and dance founded in 1795. Officially known as the Conservatoire National Supérieur de Musique et de Danse de Paris (CNSMDP), it is situated in the avenue ...
.[ There he studied composition with Fromental Halévy, Henri Berton, ]Jean Lesueur
Jean may refer to:
People
* Jean (female given name)
* Jean (male given name)
* Jean (surname)
Fictional characters
* Jean Grey, a Marvel Comics character
* Jean Valjean, fictional character in novel ''Les Misérables'' and its adaptations
* Jean ...
and Ferdinando Paer
Ferdinando Paer (1 July 1771 – 3 May 1839) was an Italian composer known for his operas. He was of Austrian descent and used the German spelling Pär in application for printing in Venice, and later in France the spelling Paër.
Life and career ...
and piano with Pierre Zimmerman. His various teachers made only a moderate impression on Gounod's musical development, but during his time at the Conservatoire he encountered Hector Berlioz
In Greek mythology, Hector (; grc, Ἕκτωρ, Hektōr, label=none, ) is a character in Homer's Iliad. He was a Trojan prince and the greatest warrior for Troy during the Trojan War. Hector led the Trojans and their allies in the defense o ...
. He later said that Berlioz and his music were among the greatest emotional influences of his youth.[Flynn, p. 2] In 1838, after Lesueur's death, some of his former students collaborated to compose a commemorative mass
Mass is an intrinsic property of a body. It was traditionally believed to be related to the quantity of matter in a physical body, until the discovery of the atom and particle physics. It was found that different atoms and different elementar ...
; the Agnus Dei
is the Latin name under which the " Lamb of God" is honoured within the Catholic Mass and other Christian liturgies descending from the Latin liturgical tradition. It is the name given to a specific prayer that occurs in these liturgies, and ...
was 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, the Prix de Rome for composition, for his cantata
A cantata (; ; literally "sung", past participle feminine singular of the Italian verb ''cantare'', "to sing") is a vocal composition with an instrumental accompaniment, typically in several movements, often involving a choir.
The meaning of ...
''Fernand''. In doing so he was surpassing his father: François had taken the second prize in the Prix de Rome for painting in 1783.[Huebner, Steven]
"Gounod, Charles-François"
''Grove Music Online'', Oxford University Press, 2001. Retrieved 21 November 2019 The Prix brought the winner two years' subsidised study at the French Institute in 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 ounod'scareer".][ He was fortunate that the director of the institute was the painter ]Dominique Ingres
Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres ( , ; 29 August 1780 – 14 January 1867) was a French Neoclassical painter. Ingres was profoundly influenced by past artistic traditions and aspired to become the guardian of academic orthodoxy against the a ...
, who had known François Gounod well and took his old friend's son under his wing.
Among the artistic notables the composer met in Rome were the singer Pauline Viardot and the pianist Fanny Hensel, sister of Felix Mendelssohn
Jakob Ludwig Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy (3 February 18094 November 1847), born and widely known as Felix Mendelssohn, was a German composer, pianist, organist and conductor of the early Romantic period. Mendelssohn's compositions include sy ...
. 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 of J.S.Bach
Johann Sebastian Bach (28 July 1750) was a German composer and musician of the late baroque music, Baroque period. He is known for his orchestral music such as the ''Brandenburg Concertos''; instrumental compositions such as the Cello Suite ...
, 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 read Goethe's ''Faust'', 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 the ]Mass ordinary
The ordinary, in Roman Catholic and other Western Christian liturgies, refers to the part of the Mass or of the canonical hours that is reasonably constant without regard to the date on which the service is performed. It is contrasted to the '' ...
, which was performed at the church of San Luigi dei Francesi in Rome.[
In Rome, Gounod found his strong religious impulses increased under the influence of the Dominican preacher Henri-Dominique Lacordaire and 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 of ]Michelangelo
Michelangelo di Lodovico Buonarroti Simoni (; 6 March 1475 – 18 February 1564), known as Michelangelo (), was an Italian sculptor, painter, architect, and poet of the High Renaissance. Born in the Republic of Florence, his work was insp ...
. He also came to know and revere the sacred music of Palestrina, 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 by ]Donizetti
Domenico Gaetano Maria Donizetti (29 November 1797 – 8 April 1848) was an Italian composer, best known for his almost 70 operas. Along with Gioachino Rossini and Vincenzo Bellini, he was a leading composer of the '' bel canto'' opera style dur ...
, Bellini and Mercadante, 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 the Court Opera in Vienna he heard '']The Magic Flute
''The Magic Flute'' (German: , ), K. 620, is an opera in two acts by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart to a German libretto by Emanuel Schikaneder. The work is in the form of a ''Singspiel'', a popular form during the time it was written that inclu ...
'' for 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 the Requiem Mass
A Requiem or Requiem Mass, also known as Mass for the dead ( la, Missa pro defunctis) or Mass of the dead ( la, Missa defunctorum), is a Mass of the Catholic Church offered for the repose of the soul or souls of one or more deceased persons, ...
to be performed. It was warmly received, and its success led Stockhammer to commission a second Mass from the composer.[Flynn, p. 3]
From Vienna, Gounod moved on to Prussia
Prussia, , Old Prussian: ''Prūsa'' or ''Prūsija'' was a German state on the southeast coast of the Baltic Sea. It formed the German Empire under Prussian rule when it united the German states in 1871. It was ''de facto'' dissolved by an em ...
. He renewed his acquaintance with Fanny Hensel in Berlin and then went on to Leipzig
Leipzig ( , ; Upper Saxon: ) is the most populous city in the German state of Saxony. Leipzig's population of 605,407 inhabitants (1.1 million in the larger urban zone) as of 2021 places the city as Germany's eighth most populous, as wel ...
to 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.[Prod'homme and Dandelot, Vol 1, p. 93] He arranged a special concert of the Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra so that his guest might hear the ''Scottish'' Symphony, and played him some of the works of Bach on the organ of the Thomaskirche. Reciprocating, Gounod played the Dies Irae from his Viennese Requiem, and was gratified when Mendelssohn said of one passage that it was worthy to be signed by Luigi Cherubini
Luigi Cherubini ( ; ; 8 or 14 SeptemberWillis, in Sadie (Ed.), p. 833 1760 – 15 March 1842) was an Italian Classical and Romantic composer. His most significant compositions are operas and sacred music. Beethoven regarded Cherubini as the gre ...
. 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
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 the Missions 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.[Cooper, p. 143] He expressed his views to a colleague:
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 of St 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:
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-act curtain raiser. Gounod and his librettist, ]Emile Augier
Emil or Emile may refer to:
Literature
*'' Emile, or On Education'' (1762), a treatise on education by Jean-Jacques Rousseau
* ''Émile'' (novel) (1827), an autobiographical novel based on Émile de Girardin's early life
*'' Emil and the Detecti ...
, created '' Sapho'', drawing on Ancient Greek legend. It was intended as a departure from the three genres of opera then prevalent in Paris – Italian opera
Italian opera is both the art of opera in Italy and opera in the Italian language. Opera was born in Italy around the year 1600 and Italian opera has continued to play a dominant role in the history of the form until the present day. Many famous ...
, grand opera and opéra comique
''Opéra comique'' (; plural: ''opéras comiques'') is a genre of French opera that contains spoken dialogue and arias. It emerged from the popular '' opéras comiques en vaudevilles'' of the Fair Theatres of St Germain and St Laurent (and to a l ...
. It later came to be regarded as the first of a new type, opéra lyrique
This is a glossary list of opera genres, giving alternative names.
"Opera" is an Italian word (short for "opera in musica"); it was not at first ''commonly'' used in Italy (or in other countries) to refer to the genre of particular works. Most c ...
, but at the time it was thought by some to be a throwback to the operas of Gluck
Christoph Willibald (Ritter von) Gluck (; 2 July 1714 – 15 November 1787) was a composer of Italian and French opera in the early classical period (music), classical period. Born in the Upper Palatinate and raised in Bohemia, both part of the ...
, written sixty or seventy years earlier. After difficulties with the censor, who found the text politically suspect and too erotic, ''Sapho'' was given at the Paris Opéra at the Salle Le Peletier
The Salle Le Peletier or Lepeletier (sometimes referred to as the Salle de la rue Le Peletier or the Opéra Le Peletier) was the home of the Paris Opera from 1821 until the building was destroyed by fire in 1873. The theatre was designed and con ...
on 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.][Curtiss, p. 59] The opera received a single performance at the Royal Opera House
The Royal Opera House (ROH) is an opera house and major performing arts venue in Covent Garden, central London. The large building is often referred to as simply Covent Garden, after a previous use of the site. It is the home of The Royal Op ...
in 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, but '' The Morning Post'' recorded, "The opera, we regret to say, was received very coldly".
In April 1851 Gounod married Anna Zimmerman (1829–1907), 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
Georges Bizet (; 25 October 18383 June 1875) was a French composer of the Romantic music, Romantic era. Best known for his operas in a career cut short by his early death, Bizet achieved few successes before his final work, ''Carmen'', whi ...
, found Gounod's teaching inspiring, praised "his warm and paternal interest" and remained a lifelong admirer.
Despite the brevity of ''Saphos run, the piece advanced Gounod's reputation, and the Comédie-Française commissioned him to write incidental music for François Ponsard
François Ponsard (1 June 1814 – 7 July 1867) was a French dramatist, poet and author and was a member of the Académie française.
Biography
Ponsard was born at Vienne, Isère in 1814 and trained as a lawyer. His first literary work wa ...
's five-act verse tragedy ''Ulysse'' (1852), based on the ''Odyssey
The ''Odyssey'' (; grc, Ὀδύσσεια, Odýsseia, ) is one of two major Ancient Greek literature, ancient Greek Epic poetry, epic poems attributed to Homer. It is one of the oldest extant works of literature still widely read by moder ...
''. 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, the Messe solennelle en l'honneur de Sainte-Cécile. It was written for the St Cecilia
Saint Cecilia ( la, Sancta Caecilia), also spelled Cecelia, was a Roman virgin martyr and is venerated in Catholic, Orthodox, Anglican, and some Lutheran churches, such as the Church of Sweden. She became the patroness of music and musicians, i ...
's day celebrations of 1855 at Saint-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 with '' La Nonne sanglante'' (The Bloody Nun, 1854), a melodramatic ghost story with a libretto that Berlioz had tried and failed to set, and that Auber, Meyerbeer, ]Verdi
Giuseppe Fortunino Francesco Verdi (; 9 or 10 October 1813 – 27 January 1901) was an Italian composer best known for his operas. He was born near Busseto to a provincial family of moderate means, receiving a musical education with the h ...
and others had rejected. The librettists, Eugène Scribe and Germain Delavigne
Louis Marie Germain Delavigne (1 February 1790 – 3 November 1868) was a French playwright and librettist.
Delavigne was born in Giverny to Louis-Augustin-Anselme Delavigne, a surveyor of the French royal forests, and his wife. He was the broth ...
, 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
François-Louis Crosnier (12 May 1792 - 1 September 1867) was a French theatre manager, politician, and playwright, who used the pen name Edmond Crosnier.
Biography
Born François-Louis Croisnu, he was the son of Louis Croisnu, who adopted ...
, who described ''La Nonne sanglante'' as "filth" and shut the production down after its eleventh performance.
Operatic successes and failures
In January 1856 Gounod was appointed a knight of the Legion of Honour
The National Order of the Legion of Honour (french: Ordre national de la Légion d'honneur), formerly the Royal Order of the Legion of Honour ('), is the highest French order of merit, both military and civil. Established in 1802 by Napoleon, ...
. In June of that year he and his wife had the first of their two children, a son Jean (1856–1935).[Prod'homme and Dandelot, Vol 1, p. 259] (Their daughter Jeanne (1863–1945) was born seven years later.) In 1858 Gounod composed his next opera, ''Le Médecin malgré lui
''Le Médecin malgré lui'' (; "The doctor/physician in spite of himself") is a farce by Molière first presented in 1666 (published as a manuscript in early 1667) at le théâtre du Palais-Royal by la Troupe du Roi. The play is one of sever ...
''. With a good libretto by Jules Barbier and Michel Carré, faithful to the Molière comedy on 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 lui'' achieved that and was revived in Paris and elsewhere during the rest of the 19th century and into the 20th. In 1893 the British ''Musical Times
''The Musical Times'' is an academic journal of classical music edited and produced in the United Kingdom and currently the oldest such journal still being published in the country.
It was originally created by Joseph Mainzer in 1842 as ''Mainzer ...
'' praised its "irresistible gaiety".[ Huebner comments that the opera does not deserve the relative neglect into which it has since fallen.][
With Barbier and Carré, Gounod turned from French comedy to German legend for '' Faust''. The three had worked on the piece in 1856, but it had to be shelved to avoid clashing with a rival (non-operatic) ''Faust'' at another theatre. Returning to it in 1858 Gounod completed the score, rehearsals began towards the end of the year and the opera opened at the Théâtre-Lyrique in 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. ''Faust'' has 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
(''Philemon and Baucis'') is an opera in three acts by Charles Gounod with a libretto by Jules Barbier and Michel Carré. The opera is based on the tale of Baucis and Philemon as told by La Fontaine (derived in turn from Ovid's ''Metamorphoses'' ...
'' (1860) and ''La Colombe
''La Colombe'' (''The Dove'') is an ''opéra comique'' in two acts by Charles Gounod with a libretto by Jules Barbier and Michel Carré based on the poem ''Le Faucon'' by Jean de la Fontaine. It premiered in a one-act version at the Theater der St ...
'' (The Dove, 1860) were opéras comiques based on stories by Jean de La Fontaine
Jean de La Fontaine (, , ; 8 July 162113 April 1695) was a French fabulist and one of the most widely read French poets of the 17th century. He is known above all for his ''Fables'', which provided a model for subsequent fabulists across Euro ...
. The first was an attempt to take advantage of a vogue for mildly satirical comedies in mythological dress started by Jacques Offenbach with '' Orphée aux enfers'' (1858).[Huebner, Steven]
"Philémon et Baucis"
''Grove Music Online
''The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians'' is an encyclopedic dictionary of music and musicians. Along with the German-language ''Die Musik in Geschichte und Gegenwart'', it is one of the largest reference works on the history and theo ...
'', Oxford University Press, 2002. Retrieved 24 November 2019 The opera had originally been intended for the theatre at Baden-Baden,[Huebner, pp. 58–59] 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
''La reine de Saba'' (''The Queen of Sheba'') is a grand opera in four or five acts by Charles Gounod to a libretto by Jules Barbier and Michel Carré inspired by Gérard de Nerval's ''La Reine de Saba'', in '' Le voyage en Orient''. It was premier ...
'' (1862), a grand opera with an exotic setting. The piece was lavishly mounted, and the premiere was attended by the Emperor Napoleon III
Napoleon III (Charles Louis Napoléon Bonaparte; 20 April 18089 January 1873) was the first President of France (as Louis-Napoléon Bonaparte) from 1848 to 1852 and the last monarch of France as Emperor of the French from 1852 to 1870. A nephew ...
and the Empress Eugénie
Eugénie is the French version of the female given name Eugenia.
Eugénie or Eugenie may refer to:
People
* Eugénie de Montijo (1826–1920), 9th Countess de Teba; later Empress Eugénie, Empress Consort to Napoléon III
*
* Princess Eugenie o ...
, but the reviews were damning and the run finished after fifteen performances.[Huebner, Steven]
"Reine de Saba, La"
''Grove Music Online'', Oxford University Press, 2002. Retrieved 24 November 2019 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".[
Gounod's next opera was '']Mireille
Mireille () is a French given name, derived from the Provençal Occitan name ''Mirèio'' (or ''Mirèlha'' in the classical norm of Occitan, ). It could be related to the Occitan verb ''mirar'' "to look, to admire" or to the given names ''Miriam'' " ...
'' (1864), a five-act tragedy in a Provençal
Provençal may refer to:
*Of Provence, a region of France
* Provençal dialect, a dialect of the Occitan language, spoken in the southeast of France
*''Provençal'', meaning the whole Occitan language
*Franco-Provençal language, a distinct Roman ...
peasant 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
Joseph Étienne Frédéric Mistral (; oc, Josèp Estève Frederic Mistral, 8 September 1830 – 25 March 1914) was a French writer of Occitan literature and lexicographer of the Provençal form of the language. He received the 1904 Nobel P ...
.[ Some critics have seen the piece as a forerunner of '']verismo
In opera, ''verismo'' (, from , meaning "true") was a post-Romantic operatic tradition associated with Italian composers such as Pietro Mascagni, Ruggero Leoncavallo, Umberto Giordano, Francesco Cilea and Giacomo Puccini.
''Verismo'' as an ...
'' opera, 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.[Huebner, Steven]
"Mireille"
''Grove Music Online'', Oxford University Press, 2002. Retrieved 24 November 2019
In 1866 Gounod was elected to the Académie des Beaux-Arts and was promoted within the Legion of Honour. During the 1860s his non-operatic works included a Mass (1862), a Stabat Mater
The Stabat Mater is a 13th-century Christian hymn to Mary, which portrays her suffering as Jesus Christ's mother during his crucifixion. Its author may be either the Franciscan friar Jacopone da Todi or Pope Innocent III.Sabatier, Paul ''Life o ...
(1867), twenty shorter pieces of liturgical or other religious music, two cantatas – one religious, one secular – and a '' Marche pontificale'' for the anniversary of the coronation of Pius IX
Pope Pius IX ( it, Pio IX, ''Pio Nono''; born Giovanni Maria Mastai Ferretti; 13 May 1792 – 7 February 1878) was head of the Catholic Church from 1846 to 1878, the longest verified papal reign. He was notable for convoking the First Vatican ...
(1869), later adopted as the official anthem of the Vatican City
Vatican City (), officially the Vatican City State ( it, Stato della Città del Vaticano; la, Status Civitatis Vaticanae),—'
* german: Vatikanstadt, cf. '—' (in Austria: ')
* pl, Miasto Watykańskie, cf. '—'
* pt, Cidade do Vati ...
.[
Gounod's last opera of the 1860s was '' Roméo et Juliette'' (1867), with a libretto that follows Shakespeare's play fairly closely.][Holden, p. 147] The piece was a success from the outset, with box-office receipts boosted by the large number of visitors to Paris for the Exposition Universelle. Within a year of the premiere it was staged in major opera houses in continental Europe, Britain and the US. Other than ''Faust'' it remains the only Gounod opera to be frequently staged internationally.[Huebner, Steven]
"Roméo et Juliette"
''Grove Music Online'', Oxford University Press, 2002. Retrieved 24 November 2019
London
After the outbreak of the Franco-Prussian War in 1870, Gounod moved with his family from their home in Saint-Cloud, outside Paris, first to the countryside near Dieppe and then to England. The house in Saint-Cloud was wrecked by the advancing Prussians in the build-up to the Siege 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.[Cooper, p. 146]
Gounod accepted an invitation from the organising committee of the Annual International Exhibition to write a choral piece for its grand opening at the Royal Albert Hall
The Royal Albert Hall is a concert hall on the northern edge of South Kensington, London. One of the UK's most treasured and distinctive buildings, it is held in trust for the nation and managed by a registered charity which receives no govern ...
on 1 May 1871. As a result of its favourable reception he was appointed director of the new Royal Albert Hall Choral Society, which, with Queen Victoria
Victoria (Alexandrina Victoria; 24 May 1819 – 22 January 1901) was Queen of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland from 20 June 1837 until Death and state funeral of Queen Victoria, her death in 1901. Her reign of 63 years and 21 ...
's approval, was subsequently renamed the Royal Choral Society
The Royal Choral Society (RCS) is an amateur choir, based in London.
History
Formed soon after the opening of the Royal Albert Hall in 1871, the choir gave its first performance as the Royal Albert Hall Choral Society on 8 May 1872 – the choir' ...
. He also conducted orchestral concerts for the Philharmonic Society and at the Crystal Palace, St James's Hall and 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 of ''The Times
''The Times'' is a British daily national newspaper based in London. It began in 1785 under the title ''The Daily Universal Register'', adopting its current name on 1 January 1788. ''The Times'' and its sister paper ''The Sunday Times'' (fou ...
'', J. W. Davison, rarely pleased by modern music, was not an admirer, but Henry Chorley
Henry Fothergill Chorley (15 December 1808 – 16 February 1872) was an English literary, art and music critic, writer and editor. He was also an author of novels, drama, poetry and lyrics.
Chorley was a prolific and important music and litera ...
of '' The Athenaeum'' was an enthusiastic supporter, and writers in ''The Musical World'', ''The Standard
The Standard may refer to:
Entertainment
* The Standard (band), an indie rock band from Portland, Oregon
* ''The Standard'' (novel), a 1934 novel by the Austrian writer Alexander Lernet-Holenia
* ''The Standard'' (Tommy Flanagan album), 1980
* ...
'', ''The Pall Mall Gazette
''The Pall Mall Gazette'' was an evening newspaper founded in London on 7 February 1865 by George Murray Smith; its first editor was Frederick Greenwood. In 1921, '' The Globe'' merged into ''The Pall Mall Gazette'', which itself was absorbed int ...
'' and ''The Morning Post'' called Gounod a great composer.
In February 1871, Julius Benedict
Sir Julius Benedict (27 November 1804 – 5 June 1885) was a German-born composer and conductor, resident in England for most of his career.
Life and music
Benedict was born in Stuttgart, the son of a Jewish banker, and in 1820 learnt compo ...
, the director of the Philharmonic Society, introduced Gounod to a singer and music teacher called 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 the French President's invitation to return and succeed Auber as director of the Conservatoire.][Prod'homme and Dandelot, Vol 2, p. 127] In early 1874 his relations with Davison of ''The 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
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 new ]Société Nationale de Musique
Lactalis is a French multinational dairy products corporation, owned by the Besnier family and based in Laval, Mayenne, France. The company's former name was Besnier SA.
Lactalis is the largest dairy products group in the world, and is the sec ...
such as Bizet, Emmanuel Chabrier
Alexis-Emmanuel Chabrier (; 18 January 184113 September 1894) was a French Romantic music, Romantic composer and pianist. His Bourgeoisie, bourgeois family did not approve of a musical career for him, and he studied law in Paris and then worked ...
, Gabriel Fauré
Gabriel Urbain Fauré (; 12 May 1845 – 4 November 1924) was a French composer, organist, pianist and teacher. He was one of the foremost French composers of his generation, and his musical style influenced many 20th-century composers ...
and Jules Massenet
Jules Émile Frédéric Massenet (; 12 May 1842 – 13 August 1912) was a French composer of the Romantic era best known for his operas, of which he wrote more than thirty. The two most frequently staged are '' Manon'' (1884) and ''Werther' ...
, 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 by Camille Saint-Saëns
Charles-Camille Saint-Saëns (; 9 October 183516 December 1921) was a French composer, organist, conductor and pianist of the Romantic music, Romantic era. His best-known works include Introduction and Rondo Capriccioso (1863), the Piano C ...
, seventeen years his junior, whom he is said to have dubbed "the French Beethoven".
Resuming operatic composition, Gounod finished ''Polyeucte
''Polyeucte'' is a drama
Drama is the specific mode of fiction represented in performance: a play, opera, mime, ballet, etc., performed in a theatre, or on radio or television.Elam (1980, 98). Considered as a genre of poetry in ge ...
'', on which he had been working in London, and during 1876 composed '' Cinq-Mars'', a four-act historical drama set in the time of Cardinal Richelieu
Armand Jean du Plessis, Duke of Richelieu (; 9 September 1585 – 4 December 1642), known as Cardinal Richelieu, was a French clergyman and statesman. He was also known as ''l'Éminence rouge'', or "the Red Eminence", a term derived from the ...
. The latter was staged first at the Opéra-Comique
The Opéra-Comique is a Paris opera company which was founded around 1714 by some of the popular theatres of the Parisian fairs. In 1762 the company was merged with – and for a time took the name of – its chief rival, the Comédie-Italienne ...
in 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 biographer James Harding, "After Polyeucte
''Polyeucte'' is a drama
Drama is the specific mode of fiction represented in performance: a play, opera, mime, ballet, etc., performed in a theatre, or on radio or television.Elam (1980, 98). Considered as a genre of poetry in ge ...
had 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
is a grand opera in four acts by Charles Gounod, his last work for the stage. The libretto by Adolphe d'Ennery was offered to Gounod after negotiations with Giuseppe Verdi stalled.
The premiere at the Paris Opera's Palais Garnier on 1 April 1881 ...
'' (1881), ran for 34 nights, and in 1884 he made a revision of ''Sapho'', 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 disappointments ''Faust'' continued to attract the public, and in November 1888 Gounod conducted the 500th performance at the Opéra.
]
Away from opera Gounod wrote the large-scale ''Messe du Sacré-Coeur de Jésus'' in 1876 and ten other masses between then and 1893. His greatest popular successes in his later career were religious works, the two large oratorios ''La Rédemption
''La Rédemption'' (''The Redemption'') is an oratorio in three parts by Charles Gounod arranged for the first time in 1882.
Composition
''La Rédemption'' is based on much earlier sketches, which were finished only after his publisher, Novello, ...
'' (1882) and ''Mors et vita ''Mors et vita'' is an oratorio in three parts by Charles Gounod premiered at the Birmingham Festival in 1885. It was conceived as a sequel to '' La rédemption'' (1882). The 1886 Paris premiere again featured Jean-Baptiste Faure. Gounod considere ...
'' (1885), both composed for and premiered at the Birmingham Triennial Music Festival in 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 of Handel
George Frideric (or Frederick) Handel (; baptised , ; 23 February 1685 – 14 April 1759) was a German-British Baroque composer well known for his operas, oratorios, anthems, concerti grossi, and organ concertos. Handel received his training i ...
and 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.[Condé, Gérard (2014). Notes to CPO CD 777863-2 ]
Gounod's last years were lived at Saint-Cloud, composing sacred music and writing his memoirs and essays. 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 at L'église de la Madeleine, Paris, on 27 October 1893. Among the pallbearers were Ambroise Thomas, Victorien Sardou and the future French President Raymond Poincaré
Raymond Nicolas Landry Poincaré (, ; 20 August 1860 – 15 October 1934) was a French statesman who served as President of France from 1913 to 1920, and three times as Prime Minister of France.
Trained in law, Poincaré was elected deputy in 1 ...
. 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 the Cimetière d'Auteuil, near Saint-Cloud, where they were interred in the family vault.["Funeral of M. Gounod", ''The Times'', 28 October 1893, p. 5]
Music
Gounod is best known for his operas – in particular ''Faust''. 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 Kennedy writes 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 to Sullivan". There is wide agreement among commentators that he was at his finest more often in the earlier decades of his career than later. Robert Orledge judges 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".][Orledge, Robert]
"Gounod, Charles (François)"
''The Oxford Companion to Music'', Oxford University Press, 2011. Retrieved November 2019
Cooper writes that as Gounod grew older he began to suffer from "what might be described as the same ''cher grand maître'' complex as infected Victor Hugo, Hugo and Alfred Tennyson, Tennyson". 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 of opéra lyrique
This is a glossary list of opera genres, giving alternative names.
"Opera" is an Italian word (short for "opera in musica"); it was not at first ''commonly'' used in Italy (or in other countries) to refer to the genre of particular works. Most c ...
, smaller-scale and more intimate than grand opera but through-composed, without the spoken dialogue of opéra comique
''Opéra comique'' (; plural: ''opéras comiques'') is a genre of French opera that contains spoken dialogue and arias. It emerged from the popular '' opéras comiques en vaudevilles'' of the Fair Theatres of St Germain and St Laurent (and to a l ...
. 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.
'' La Nonne sanglante'' (1854), a work on a larger scale than ''Sapho'', 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 classes '']Le Médecin malgré lui
''Le Médecin malgré lui'' (; "The doctor/physician in spite of himself") is a farce by Molière first presented in 1666 (published as a manuscript in early 1667) at le théâtre du Palais-Royal by la Troupe du Roi. The play is one of sever ...
'' (1858) as one of Gounod's finest works, "witty, quick-moving and full of life".[Cooper, p. 144] In complete contrast to its predecessor, it is a three-act comedy, regarded as a masterpiece by Richard Strauss and Igor Stravinsky.[Bury, Laurent]
"Miroirs de Gounod: Le Médecin malgré lui"
''Forum Opera, Le magazine du monde lyrique'', 15 November 2017 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 time Serge Diaghilev revived 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 commissioned Erik Satie to compose recitatives to replace the original spoken dialogue, and that version is sometimes used in the occasional modern productions of the piece, such as that by Laurent Pelly at the Grand Théâtre de Genève in 2016.][
'' 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's ''Les Huguenots'' or Rossini's ''William Tell (opera), William Tell'', Faust in its original 1859 form tells its story without spectacular ballets, opulent staging, grand orchestral effects or conventionally theatrical emotion.][ "The charm of Faust lay in its naturalness, its simplicity, the sincerity and directness of its emotional appeal" (Cooper).][Cooper, p. 145] The authors labelled ''Faust'' "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.][Huebner, Steven]
"Faust (ii)"
''Grove Music Online'', Oxford University Press, 2002. Retrieved 27 November 2019 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,[Holden, p. 145] 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 of '']Philémon et Baucis
(''Philemon and Baucis'') is an opera in three acts by Charles Gounod with a libretto by Jules Barbier and Michel Carré. The opera is based on the tale of Baucis and Philemon as told by La Fontaine (derived in turn from Ovid's ''Metamorphoses'' ...
'', 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 young Francis Poulenc composed recitatives to replace the spoken dialogue.[ The music critic Andrew Clements writes of '']La Colombe
''La Colombe'' (''The Dove'') is an ''opéra comique'' in two acts by Charles Gounod with a libretto by Jules Barbier and Michel Carré based on the poem ''Le Faucon'' by Jean de la Fontaine. It premiered in a one-act version at the Theater der St ...
'' that it is not a profound work, but is "well filled with the kind of ingratiating tunes that Gounod could turn out so effectively". Although ''La Reine de Saba'' was 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
Mireille () is a French given name, derived from the Provençal Occitan name ''Mirèio'' (or ''Mirèlha'' in the classical norm of Occitan, ). It could be related to the Occitan verb ''mirar'' "to look, to admire" or to the given names ''Miriam'' " ...
'' (1865) was a moderate success, and although it did not emulate ''Faust'' in 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 many coloratura sopranos, 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'or'' from ''Faust''.[O'Connor, Patrick]
"Gounod: Mireille"
''Gramophone'', December 1992, p. 137. Retrieved 28 November 2019 Gounod revised the work, even giving it a happy ending, but in the 1930s Reynaldo Hahn and Henri Büsser prepared a new edition for the Opéra-Comique, restoring the work to its original tragic five acts.[
Gounod's last successful opera was '' Roméo et Juliette'' (1867). Gustav Kobbé wrote 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 for Adelina Patti and then Nellie Melba, and that in New York it had only featured regularly at the Metropolitan Opera when it was under the control of Abbey, Schoeffel and Grau, Maurice Grau in the late 19th-century.][Kobbé, p. 752] 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 as ''Faust'', ''Roméo et Juliette'' continues to hold the stage internationally.][ Gounod had no further success with new operas. His three attempts, '' Cinq-Mars'' (1877), '']Polyeucte
''Polyeucte'' is a drama
Drama is the specific mode of fiction represented in performance: a play, opera, mime, ballet, etc., performed in a theatre, or on radio or television.Elam (1980, 98). Considered as a genre of poetry in ge ...
'' (1878), and ''Le Tribut de Zamora
is a grand opera in four acts by Charles Gounod, his last work for the stage. The libretto by Adolphe d'Ennery was offered to Gounod after negotiations with Giuseppe Verdi stalled.
The premiere at the Paris Opera's Palais Garnier on 1 April 1881 ...
'' (1881), were all taken off after brief runs, and have seldom been seen since.[
]
Orchestral and chamber music
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.[Nichols, Roger (2019). Notes to Chandos CD CHSA5231 ] 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 scholar Roger Nichols (musical scholar), Roger Nichols and the composer's biographer Gérard Condé also find a debt to Mendelssohn's Symphony No. 4 (Mendelssohn), ''Italian'' Symphony in the slow movement of the First.][ Gounod's sometime pupil Bizet took the First as his model for his own Symphony in C (Bizet), Symphony 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
Funeral March of a Marionette (French: ) is a short piece by Charles Gounod. It was originally written for solo piano in 1872 and orchestrated in 1879. It is perhaps best known as the theme music for the television program ''Alfred Hitchcock Presen ...
'' (1879), an orchestration of an 1872 solo piano piece.[
The ''Petite Symphonie (Gounod), Petite Symphonie'' (1885), written for nine wind instruments, follows the classical, four-movement pattern, with a slow introduction to the sonata form first movement. The commentator Diether Stepphun refers to its "cheerfully contemplative and gallant wit, with all the experience of human and musical maturity". Gounod's ]Ave Maria
The Hail Mary ( la, Ave Maria) is a traditional Christian prayer addressing Mary, the mother of Jesus. The prayer is based on two biblical passages featured in the Gospel of Luke: the Angel Gabriel's visit to Mary (the Annunciation) and Mary's s ...
gained considerable popularity. It consists of a descant superimposed over a version of the first prelude of Bach's ''The Well-Tempered Clavier''. In its original form it is for violin with piano; the words of the Hail Mary were 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, the ''Redemption'', and ''Mors et Vita'', will still endure". In the 20th century views changed considerably. In 1916, Gustave Chouquet and Adolphe Jullien wrote of "a monotony and heaviness which must weary the best-disposed audience". In 1918, in a centenary tribute to Gounod, Julien Tiersot described ''La Rédemption'' and ''Mors et Vita'' as "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 his ''Messe 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
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 Ravel called Gounod "the true founder of the ''mélodie'' in France".][Johnson, p. 221] The pianist and musical scholar Graham Johnson (musician), Graham Johnson, quoting this, adds that although Berlioz might be thought to have a claim to that title, it was Gounod who brought the ''mélodie'' widespread popularity in France:
Johnson adds that Gounod brought to the ''mélodie'' "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 harmonic ''juste''".[Johnson, p. 223]
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.[Johnson, p. 222] Examples include "Où voulez-vous aller?" (words by Théophile Gautier, Gautier, 1839) – which challenged comparison with Berlioz, who had already set the poem in his ''Les nuits d'été, Les Nuits d'été'' – and "Venice" (Alfred de Musset, 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 by Alphonse de Lamartine, Lamartine, c. 1840) demonstrate Gounod's ability to cope with large-scale Romanticism, Romantic verse.][
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 by Edward Maitland, 1872), "If thou art sleeping, maiden" (Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, 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 by William Wordsworth, Wordsworth, Charles Kingsley, Thomas Hood, Lord Byron, Byron, Percy Bysshe Shelley, Shelley and Francis Palgrave.][Birch, Dinah]
"Gounod, Charles François"
''The Oxford Companion to English Literature''. Oxford University Press, 2009. Retrieved 30 November 2019
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 to ''mélodie'' is quoted above, and Claude Debussy, Debussy wrote, "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".][''Quoted'' in Huebner, Steven]
"Gounod, Charles-François"
''Grove Music Online'', Oxford University Press, 2001. Retrieved 30 November 2019
Music files
Notes, references and sources
Notes
References
Sources
Books
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Troisième année (1878)
Septième année (1882)
Dixième année (1885)
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Volume 1
Volume 2
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Journals
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External links
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Charles Gounod recordings
at the Discography of American Historical Recordings.
{{DEFAULTSORT:Gounod, Charles
1818 births
1893 deaths
19th-century classical composers
19th-century French composers
19th-century French male musicians
Catholic liturgical composers
Composers for pedal piano
Composers for piano
French ballet composers
French composers of sacred music
French male classical composers
French opera composers
French Roman Catholics
French Romantic composers
Honorary Members of the Royal Philharmonic Society
Lycée Saint-Louis alumni
Male opera composers
Musicians from Paris
National anthem writers
Prix de Rome for composition
Pupils of Jean-François Le Sueur
Royal Philharmonic Society Gold Medallists
Oratorio composers