''Maître Pierre'' (''Master Pierre'') is an uncompleted project by Charles Gounod, intended as his twelfth opera and planned in the summer of 1877 with the librettist Louis Gallet. The "Master Pierre" of the title was Pierre Abélard, the twelfth century scholar-philosopher and lover of Heloise. The project's progress is documented in five letters by Gounod to , the scenarist for '' Cinq-Mars'', and in an 1878 interview with the critic

Eduard Hanslick Eduard Hanslick (11 September 18256 August 1904) was an Austrian music critic, aesthetician and historian. Among the leading critics of his time, he was the chief music critic of the ''Neue Freie Presse'' from 1864 until the end of his life. H ...

. The question of how Abelard's castration would be handled was a subject of ribald speculation in the press; when Hanslick pressed it Gounod explained that he was murdered at the end of the fourth act, his ghost visiting Héloïse in the last act. Although the opera was half orchestrated by summer of 1878, Gounod abandoned the work to begin '' Le tribut de Zamora''. The music was later arranged by the composer as a ''Suite dramatique en quatre parties''; the full score is preserved in the Bibliothèque nationale. In 1904 Gounod's widow asked

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 ...

to complete the fifth act. He supplied recitatives to connect the existing numbers, and in 1939 Reynaldo Hahn conducted a concert performance of the final tableau:'' "du grand Gounod"'' was one judgment.James Harding: ''Gounod'' (Stein & Day NY 1973) pp195-6

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Maitre Pierre Operas by Charles Gounod Unfinished operas Operas 1877 operas