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143-492: Charles-François Gounod ( / ɡ uː ˈ n oʊ / ; French: [ʃaʁl fʁɑ̃swa ɡuno] ; 17 June 1818 – 18 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 " (an elaboration of

286-638: A Bach piece) and " Funeral March of a Marionette ". Born in Paris into an artistic and musical family, Gounod was a student at the Conservatoire de Paris 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 , 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

429-469: A Requiem . Much of Reicha's music remained unpublished and/or unperformed during his life, and virtually all of it fell into obscurity after his death. This is partly explained by Reicha's own decisions he reflected on in his autobiography: "Many of my works have never been heard because of my aversion to seeking performances [...] I counted the time spent in such efforts as lost, and preferred to remain at my desk." He also frequently advocated ideas, such as

572-453: A ballet had to be inserted (into the first scene of the final act) before the work could be played at the Opéra : it became the most frequently performed opera at that house. With the change from spoken dialogue to sung recitatives, plus the musical and balletic additions, the opera was thus finally transformed into a work following the conventions of grand opera . It was Faust with which

715-452: A choir . He curses hope and faith , and asks for infernal guidance. Méphistophélès appears (duet: "Me voici") and, with a tempting image of Marguerite at her spinning wheel , persuades Faust to buy Méphistophélès's services on Earth in exchange for Faust's in Hell. Faust's goblet of poison is magically transformed into an elixir of youth , making the aged doctor a handsome young gentleman;

858-525: 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. 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

1001-460: A Marionette " (1879), an orchestration of an 1872 solo piano piece. The 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 gained considerable popularity. It consists of

1144-498: A Mass (1862), a Stabat Mater (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 (1869), later adopted as the official anthem of the Vatican City . Gounod's last opera of the 1860s was Roméo et Juliette (1867), with a libretto that follows Shakespeare's play fairly closely. The piece

1287-447: 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 . 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

1430-532: A contemporary as "the greatest teacher then living" – and in 1836 he was admitted to the Conservatoire de Paris . There he studied composition with Fromental Halévy , Henri Berton , Jean Lesueur and Ferdinando Paer 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 . He later said that Berlioz and his music were among

1573-442: 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

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1716-474: A few years later. Gounod lived his last years at Saint-Cloud, composing sacred music and writing his memoirs and essays. His oratorio Saint Francois d'Assise was 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

1859-705: A great composer. 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

2002-498: A large-scale variation cycle (composed in 1803/04 for Prince Louis Ferdinand ), and the treatise Practische Beispiele (published in 1803), which contained 24 compositions. Reicha's life and career in Vienna were interrupted by Napoleon 's November 1805 occupation of the city by French troops. In 1806 Reicha travelled to Leipzig to arrange a performance of his new work, the cantata Lenore (stopping at Prague to see his mother for

2145-411: 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,

2288-537: A leading patron of the arts in Vienna, arranged for Gounod's setting of the Requiem Mass to be performed. It was warmly received, and its success led Stockhammer to commission a second Mass from the composer. From Vienna, Gounod moved on to Prussia . He renewed his acquaintance with Fanny Hensel in Berlin and then went on to Leipzig to meet her brother. At their first encounter Mendelssohn greeted him, "So you're

2431-534: A lifelong admirer. Despite the brevity of Sapho ' s run, the piece advanced Gounod's reputation, and the Comédie-Française commissioned him to write incidental music for François Ponsard 's five-act verse tragedy Ulysse (1852), based on the Odyssey . The score included twelve choruses as well as orchestral interludes. It was not a successful production: Ponsard's play was not well received, and

2574-413: 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 – who had been a friend of Beethoven and was described by

2717-533: 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

2860-633: A principal of the Opéra-Comique, Joseph-Théodore-Désiré Barbot, shortly before the opening night. After a successful initial run at the Théâtre Lyrique the publisher Antoine Choudens, who purchased the copyright for 10,000 francs , took the work (now with recitatives replacing the spoken dialogue) on tour through Germany, Belgium, Italy and England, with Caroline Miolan-Carvalho repeating her role. Performances in Germany followed, with

3003-442: A prison Méphistophélès and Faust are surrounded by witches ("Un, deux et trois"). Faust is transported to a cave of queens and courtesans , and Méphistophélès promises to provide Faust with the love of the greatest and most beautiful women in history. An orgiastic ballet suggests the revelry that continues throughout the night. As dawn approaches, Faust sees a vision of Marguerite and calls for her. Méphistophélès helps Faust enter

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3146-501: A pure child of nature. Méphistophélès brings in a decorated box containing exquisite jewelry and a hand mirror and leaves it on Marguerite's doorstep, next to Siebel's flowers. Marguerite enters, pondering her encounter with Faust at the city gates, and sings a melancholy ballad about the King of Thule ("Il était un roi de Thulé"). Marthe, Marguerite's neighbour, notices the jewellery and says it must be from an admirer. Marguerite tries on

3289-408: A rousing, irreverent song about the golden calf ("Le veau d'or"). Méphistophélès predicts Wagner will not return from the war and maligns Marguerite, and Valentin tries to strike him with his sword, which shatters in the air. Valentin and friends use the cross-shaped hilts of their swords to fend off what they now know is an infernal power (chorus: "De l'enfer"). Méphistophélès is joined by Faust and

3432-603: A surrogate guardian to Reicha's two daughters at his death. Technical wizardry also prevails in compositions that illustrate Reicha's theoretical treatise Practische Beispiele (Practical Examples) of 1803, where techniques such as bitonality and polyrhythm are explored in extremely difficult sight-reading exercises. 36 fugues for piano , published in 1803, was conceived as an illustration of Reicha's neue Fugensystem , i.e. those new ideas about fugues which had piqued Beethoven. Reicha proposed that second entries of fugue subjects in major keys could occur in keys other than

3575-460: 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 and others had rejected. The librettists, Eugène Scribe and Germain Delavigne , reworked

3718-471: A vast array of genres and forms, from opera to piano fugues . He is best known today for his 25 wind quintets , composed in Paris between 1811 and 1820, which were mostly premiered from 1817 in the foyer of the Théâtre Favart by some of the world's finest wind soloists, to such effect that they were played all over Europe shortly afterward. Reicha claimed in his memoirs that his wind quintets filled

3861-583: A virtuoso cellist, conductor and composer living in Wallerstein, Bavaria , who adopted him. Josef and his wife, being childless, could give young Anton their full attention: Josef taught him violin and piano, his wife insisted on him being taught French and German, and he was also taught the flute . In 1785 the family moved to Bonn , where Reicha became a member of the Hofkapelle of Max Franz , Elector of Cologne , playing violin and second flute in

4004-489: A voice on high sings "Sauvée!" ("Saved!"). The bells of Easter sound and a chorus of angels sings "Christ est ressuscité!" ('"Christ is risen!"). The walls of the prison open, and Marguerite's soul rises to heaven . In despair Faust follows it with his eyes; he falls to his knees and prays. Méphistophélès is turned away by the shining sword of the archangel . Although the Walpurgisnacht ballet sequence from act 5

4147-519: A void: "At that time, there was a dearth not only of good classic[al] music, but of any good music at all for wind instruments, simply because the composers knew little of their technique." Indeed, Reicha's experiences as a flautist must have helped in the creation of these pieces, in which he systematically explored the possibilities of the wind ensemble and invented an extended sonata form variant that could accommodate as many as five principal themes. Reicha wrote his first experimental quintet in 1811;

4290-535: 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 (1878), and Le Tribut de Zamora (1881), were all taken off after brief runs, and have seldom been seen since. The two symphonies, in D major and E-flat major, cannot be precisely dated. The first

4433-517: 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

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4576-462: 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

4719-436: Is a modal fugue played on white keys only, in which cadences are possible on all but the 7th degree of the scale without further alteration . Six fugues employ two subjects, one has three, and No. 15 has six. In several of the fugues, Reicha established a link with the old tradition by using subjects by Haydn (no. 3), Bach (no. 5), Mozart (no. 7), Scarlatti (no. 9), Frescobaldi (no. 14) and Handel (no. 15). Many of

4862-405: Is a social outcast. She sings an aria at her spinning wheel ("Il ne revient pas"). Siebel stands by her. The scene shifts to the square outside Marguerite's house. Valentin's company returns from the war to a military march ("Déposons les armes" and "Gloire immortelle de nos aïeux", the well-known "soldiers' chorus"). Siebel asks Valentin to forgive Marguerite. Valentin rushes to her cottage. While he

5005-412: Is a three-act comedy, regarded as a masterpiece by Richard Strauss and Igor 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

5148-435: Is astonishing. Once started, my verve and imagination were indefatigable. Ideas came to me so rapidly it was often difficult to set them down without losing some of them. I always had a great penchant for doing the unusual in composition. When writing in an original vein, my creative faculties and spirit seemed keener than when following the precepts of my predecessors." In 1801, Reicha's opera L'ouragan , which failed in Paris,

5291-467: Is inside Faust and Méphistophélès appear, and Méphistophélès, knowing that Marguerite is not in there alone, sings a mocking burlesque of a lover's serenade under Marguerite's window ("Vous qui faites l'endormie"). Valentin takes the bait and comes out of the cottage, now knowing that Faust has debauched his sister. The two men fight, but Faust is reluctant to hurt the brother of the woman he adores. Méphistophélès blocks Valentin's sword, allowing Faust to make

5434-451: 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 (1865)

5577-482: Is now best remembered for his substantial early contributions to the wind quintet literature and his role as teacher of pupils including Franz Liszt , Hector Berlioz and César Franck . He was also an accomplished theorist , and wrote several treatises on various aspects of composition. Some of his theoretical work dealt with experimental methods of composition, which he applied in a variety of works such as fugues and études for piano and string quartet . None of

5720-419: 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 of Philémon et Baucis , Huebner comments that there is little dramatic music in the score and that most of

5863-664: 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 , 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,

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6006-852: Is used, including, for example, the variation form with extensive use of invertible counterpoint (no. 3), or an Andante in C minor based on the famous Folia harmonic progression. Reicha's massive cycle of variations, L'art de varier , uses the same pedagogical principle and includes variations in the form of four-voice fugues, program music variations, toccata -like hand-crossing variations, etc., foreshadowing in many aspects not only Beethoven 's Diabelli Variations , but also works by Schubert, Wagner and Debussy . Many of Reicha's string quartets are similarly advanced, and also anticipate numerous later developments. The eight Vienna string quartets (1801–1805) are among his most important works. Though largely ignored since Reicha's death, they were highly influential during his lifetime and left their mark on

6149-462: Is usually omitted from modern staged performances of Faust , it is frequently performed separately as a concert work or part of a ballet program, e.g. George Balanchine 's Walpurgisnacht Ballet . 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

6292-673: 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 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

6435-460: The Cimetière d'Auteuil  [ fr ] near Saint-Cloud, where they were interred in the family vault. 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

6578-419: The Conservatoire de Paris . The following year, Reicha himself was appointed professor of counterpoint and fugue at the Conservatoire with the support of Louis XVIII , despite opposition from its influential professor of composition and (from 1822) director Luigi Cherubini This second Paris period produced several important theoretical writings. Cours de composition musicale , published by 1818, became

6721-723: 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 . 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 , Bellini and Mercadante , composers he described as merely "vines twisted around

6864-576: The Dresden Semperoper in 1861 being the first to bill the work as Margarethe rather than Faust . For many years this custom – or alternatively, staging the opera as Gretchen – continued in Germany. Some sources claim this was out of respect for part 1 of Goethe's poetic drama, which the opera follows closely. Others claim the opposite: that the retitling was done to emphasise Gounod's opera's reliance on Goethe's characters, and to differentiate it from Louis Spohr 's Faust , which had held

7007-481: The Harmoniemusik of the last century). His writing combines virtuoso display (often still very challenging today, yet idiomatic for each instrument), popular elements (from the comic opera his soloists played, from his Bohemian folk heritage, from the military background to his life – many marches, 'walking' themes and fanfares), and his lifelong more academic interests in variation form and counterpoint. Four of

7150-604: The Metropolitan Opera in New York City opened for the first time on 22 October 1883 . It is the eighth most frequently performed opera there, with 753 performances through the 2012–2013 season. It was not until the period between 1965 and 1977 that the full version was performed (and then with some minor cuts), and all performances in that production included the Walpurgisnacht ballet. A recording

7293-733: 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 , J. W. Davison , rarely pleased by modern music, was not an admirer, but Henry Chorley of The Athenaeum was an enthusiastic supporter, and writers in The Musical World , The Standard , The Pall Mall Gazette and The Morning Post called Gounod

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7436-627: The Prix de Rome for composition, for his cantata Fernand . 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 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

7579-744: 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

7722-735: The University of Bonn in 1789, where he studied and performed until 1794, when Bonn was attacked and captured by the French. He managed to escape to Hamburg , vowed never to perform in public again and began to earn a living teaching harmony, composition and piano. He continued composing and studied mathematics , philosophy and, significantly, methods of teaching composition. In 1799 he moved to Paris, hoping to achieve success as an opera composer. These hopes were dashed, however: he could neither get his old librettos accepted nor find suitable new ones despite support from friends and influential members of

7865-519: The 'incomparably superior' first two of the later published quintets of Opus 88 were written by 1814 after further study of the instruments and collaboration with his players, with the remaining four completed before publication in 1817. Three further sets of six were published as Opus 91 in 1818, Opus 99 in 1819 and Opus 100 in 1820. Musically, the wind quintets represent a more conservative trend in Reicha's oeuvre when compared to his earlier work, namely

8008-462: The 1790s, and renewed his friendship with Beethoven, whom he had not seen since 1792, when the latter moved from Bonn to Vienna. At this time (late 1802–1803) Beethoven's Eroica symphony was in gestation, and it is likely that the two men exchanged ideas on fugues in modern composition. Reicha's move to Vienna marked the beginning of a more productive and successful period in his life. As he wrote in his memoirs, "The number of works I finished in Vienna

8151-450: 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". 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 Hugo and Tennyson ". Huebner observes that

8294-439: The 19th century, but by the time Sergei 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

8437-719: The Conservatoire in general. Frédéric Chopin considered studying with him in December 1831 shortly after arriving in Paris from his native Poland, but ultimately decided otherwise. From June 1835 until Reicha's death in May 1836, the young César Franck took private lessons. His notebooks survive (in the Bibliothèque Nationale in Paris) with Reicha's annotations (and a later cryptic comment possibly by Erik Satie ), showing how hard Reicha worked his 13-year-old pupil. Reicha

8580-482: 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 (1858) as one of Gounod's finest works, "witty, quick-moving and full of life". In complete contrast to its predecessor, it

8723-733: The Paris Conservatory with Reicha in 1825. Reicha stayed in Paris for the rest of his life. He became a naturalized citizen of his adopted country in 1829 and Chevalier of the Légion d'honneur in 1835. That same year, he succeeded François-Adrien Boieldieu at the Académie Française . He published two more large treatises, Traité de haute composition musicale (1824–1826) (Treatise on advanced musical composition) and Art du compositeur dramatique (1833) (Art of dramatic composition), on writing opera. His ideas expressed in

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8866-460: 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

9009-464: 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

9152-408: The advanced ideas he advocated in the most radical of his music and writings, such as polyrhythm , polytonality and microtonal music , were accepted or employed by other nineteenth-century composers. Due to Reicha's unwillingness to have his music published (like Michael Haydn before him), he fell into obscurity soon after his death and his life and work have yet to be intensively studied. Reicha

9295-404: 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 and others; there is also a strand of classical restraint and elegance that influenced Gabriel Fauré . Claude Debussy wrote that Gounod represented

9438-455: The aristocracy, and moved on to Vienna in 1801. Once there, like Beethoven and the young Schubert , he studied with Antonio Salieri and Johann Georg Albrechtsberger . Both were renowned teachers, and Albrechtsberger was also an important theorist and acknowledged authority on counterpoint and fugal theory. Reicha called on Haydn , whom he had met several times in Bonn and Hamburg during

9581-650: 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 '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 –

9724-443: 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". Faust (opera) The original version of Faust employed spoken dialogue, and it

9867-460: The composer's biographer Gérard Condé also find a debt to Mendelssohn's 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 (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

10010-504: The compositions of the Viennese period. In the quintets, as he describes in his preface, Reicha wanted to expand the technical limits of the five still evolving wind instruments (hand horn, 'un-rationalised' flute and clarinet, double reeds with fewer keys), and thereby also the ambitions of amateur wind players, by establishing a nucleus for a corpus of substantial work like that available to string players (and consciously more serious than

10153-494: 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

10296-579: 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. Gounod accepted an invitation from

10439-598: The court orchestra under his uncle's direction. The young Beethoven entered the Hofkapelle as violist and organist in 1789 and Reicha befriended him. Christian Gottlob Neefe , one of the most important figures in the musical life of the city at the time, may well have instructed both Reicha and his gifted piano pupil Beethoven in composition and introduced them to the works of Johann Sebastian Bach , such as The Well-Tempered Clavier . From about 1785 Reicha studied composition secretly, against his uncle's wishes, composing and conducting his first symphony in 1787 and entering

10582-443: The critic Patrick O'Connor as an attempt by the composer to repeat the success of Méphistophélès' Veau d'or from Faust . 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

10725-414: 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 such as Bizet, Emmanuel Chabrier , Gabriel Fauré and Jules Massenet , was establishing itself. He was not embittered, and

10868-504: The essential French sensibility of his time. 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

11011-431: 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. Gounod wrote twelve operas, in a variety of the genres then prevailing in France. Sapho (1851) was an early example of opéra lyrique , smaller-scale and more intimate than grand opera but through-composed , without

11154-463: The fatal thrust. With his dying breath Valentin blames Marguerite for his death and condemns her to Hell before the assembled townspeople ("Ecoute-moi bien Marguerite"). Marguerite goes to the church and tries to pray there but is stopped, first by the sadistic Méphistophélès and then by a choir of devils. She finishes her prayer but faints when she is cursed again by Méphistophélès. The Harz mountains on Walpurgis Night / A cavern / The interior of

11297-467: The first movement of his 5th symphonies. Berlioz says the quintets "enjoyed a certain vogue in Paris for a number of years. They are interesting pieces but a little cold", while Louis Spohr , who was visiting Paris in 1820–21 and reserved judgment until he had heard several performed, assessed them in a letter home (which he included in his autobiography) as having too many ideas linked carelessly or not at all ("were he less rich, he would be richer"), "yet

11440-570: The first of a new type, opéra lyrique , but at the time it was thought by some to be a throwback to the operas of Gluck , 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 on 16 April 1851. It was reviewed by Berlioz in his capacity as a music critic; he found some parts "extremely beautiful …

11583-837: The first time since 1780), but because Leipzig was blockaded by the French, not only was the performance cancelled but he could not return to Vienna for several months. When he did return it was not for long, because by 1808 the Austrian Empire was already preparing for another war, the War of the Fifth Coalition , so Reicha decided to move back to Paris. He was soon teaching composition privately, future prolific composer George Onslow being one of his pupils by 1808. This time three of his many operas were produced, but they all failed; yet his fame as theorist and teacher increased steadily, and by 1817 most of his pupils became professors at

11726-415: The flute line up an octave, thus destroying the composer's intention" (p. 56); of Gustave Vogt 's cor anglais playing he says (p. 23): "However remarkable the singer...I find it hard to believe she can ever have made it sound as natural and touching as it did on Vogt's instrument". Reicha was particularly close personally to the horn player L-F Dauprat , who was nominated by the family's lawyer as

11869-445: The former work sparked some controversy at the Conservatoire. In 1826 Franz Liszt , Hector Berlioz and Henri Cohen became students of his, as did composers Charles Gounod and Pauline Viardot sometime later. Berlioz in his Memoirs acknowledges that Reicha was 'an admirable teacher of counterpoint' who cared about his pupils and whose 'lessons were models of integrity and thoroughness' – high praise indeed from one so critical of

12012-464: 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 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,

12155-637: The greatest emotional influences of his youth. In 1838, after Lesueur's death, some of his former students collaborated to compose a commemorative mass ; the Agnus Dei 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". In 1839, at his third attempt, Gounod won France's most prestigious musical prize,

12298-509: 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 the Royal Opera House 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,

12441-523: The jewels and is captivated by how they enhance her beauty, as she sings in the famous aria , the Jewel Song ("Oh dieu! Que de bijoux ... Ah! je ris de me voir si belle en ce miroir"). Méphistophélès and Faust join the women in the garden and romance them. Marguerite allows Faust to kiss her ("Laisse-moi, laisse-moi contempler ton visage"), but then asks him to go away. She sings at her window for his quick return, and Faust, listening, returns to her. Under

12584-669: 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 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

12727-442: The minuets and scherzi, as short pieces, are less open to this objection, and some of them are real masterpieces in form and contents". Spohr was generally impressed by the virtuosity of the wind soloists and was very pleased with their performance of his own piano and wind quintet. Berlioz also comments on two of the players (in other works): " Joseph Guillou  [ de ] , the first flute...has to dominate...so he transposes

12870-540: 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. 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

13013-450: 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 , 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

13156-472: 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 that it

13299-624: The organising committee of the Annual International Exhibition to write a choral piece for its grand opening at the Royal Albert Hall 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 's approval, was subsequently renamed the Royal Choral Society . He also conducted orchestral concerts for

13442-502: 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, Émile Augier , 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 , grand opera and opéra comique . It later came to be regarded as

13585-471: The prison where Marguerite is being held for killing her child. They sing a love duet ("Oui, c'est toi que j'aime"). Méphistophélès states that only a mortal hand can deliver Marguerite from her fate, and Faust offers to rescue her from the hangman , but she prefers to trust her fate to God and His angels ("Anges purs, anges radieux"). At the end she asks why Faust's hands are covered in blood, pushes him away, and falls down motionless. Méphistophélès curses, as

13728-459: 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 (1882) and Mors et vita (1885), both composed for and premiered at

13871-549: The quartets of Beethoven and Schubert, much as Bach 's Well-Tempered Clavier was ignored by the public but well known to Beethoven and Chopin. Reicha also wrote prolifically for various kinds of ensembles other than wind quintets and string quartets, including violin sonatas , piano trios , horn trios, flute quartets, various works for solo wind or string instruments accompanied by strings, and works for voice. He also wrote in larger-scale genres, including at least eight known symphonies , seven operas, and choral works such as

14014-514: The quintets have trios in passacaglia form, the repeating theme however being on different instruments in each case so not necessarily in the bass. The earlier Beethoven connection, now severed, is revisited in the scherzo of the quintet in E-flat Op. 100 no. 3, which contains clear musical quotations (most obvious in the horn part) from both the scherzo of his Eroica (also in E-flat major ) and

14157-406: 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

14300-468: 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 painter Dominique Ingres , 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

14443-518: 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

14586-458: The same venue in English, Gounod took a theme from the prelude to the opera and wrote a new aria for the star baritone Charles Santley in the role of Valentin, 'Even bravest heart may swell' (with words by Henry Chorley ). This number was then translated into French for subsequent productions as "Avant de quitter ces lieux" and has become one of the most familiar pieces from the opera. In 1869

14729-473: The sincerity and directness of its emotional appeal" (Cooper). 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

14872-562: The singer Pauline Viardot and the pianist Fanny Hensel , sister of Felix 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 of J.   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 read Goethe 's Faust , and began sketching music for an operatic setting, which came to fruition over

15015-542: The skill of his virtuosi from the Opéra Comique to extend significantly the technique and musical ambitions of future players of the still evolving wind instruments. In 1818 he married Virginie Enaust, who bore him two daughters. Around this time he taught composition to the future pioneer of the modern oboe Henri Brod , and in 1819 he began teaching harmony and music theory to Louise Farrenc ; after interrupting her studies for her own marriage, she completed studies at

15158-431: The spoken dialogue of opéra 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

15301-458: The stage for many years in Germany and had recently appeared (1851) in a three-act revision. It is also possible that the 1861 Dresden title change was out of respect for Spohr's close and long association with the city. The opera was given for the first time in Italy at La Scala in 1862 and in England at Her Majesty's Theatre , London (in Italian) in 1863. In 1864, when the opera was given at

15444-560: The standard dominant ), to widen the possibilities for modulations and undermine the conservative tonal stability of the fugue. The fugues of the collection not only illustrate this point, but also employ a variety of extremely convoluted technical tricks such as polyrhythm (no. 30), combined (nos. 24, 28), asymmetrical (no. 20) and simply uncommon (no. 10 is in 12/4, no. 12 in 2/8) meters and time signatures , some of which are derived from folk music, an approach that directly anticipates that of later composers such as Béla Bartók . No. 13

15587-482: The standard text on composition at the Conservatoire; the Traité de mélodie of 1814, a treatise on melody , was also widely studied. Another semi-didactic work, 34 Études for piano , was published by 1817. It was also in Paris that Reicha started composing the 25 wind quintets which proved to be his most enduring works: far more conservative musically than the experimental fugues he had written in Vienna, but exploiting

15730-481: 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) and La Colombe (The Dove, 1860) were opéras comiques based on stories by Jean de La Fontaine . 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). The opera had originally been intended for

15873-403: The strange companions then set out into the world. At the city gates A chorus of students, soldiers and villagers sings a drinking song ("Vin ou Bière"). Valentin, leaving for war with his friend Wagner, entrusts the care of his sister Marguerite to his youthful friend Siebel ("O sainte médaille ... Avant de quitter ces lieux"). Méphistophélès appears, provides the crowd with wine, and sings

16016-442: The technical accomplishments are unique to fugue literature. The études of op. 97, Études dans le genre fugué , published in Paris by 1817, are similarly advanced. Each composition is preceded by Reicha's comments for young composers. Thirty of the 34 études included are fugues, and every étude is preceded by a prelude based on a particular technical or compositional problem. Again an exceptionally large number of forms and textures

16159-463: 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 described La Nonne sanglante as "filth" and shut the production down after its eleventh performance. In January 1856 Gounod

16302-409: The theatre at Baden-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

16445-529: The time of Cardinal Richelieu . The latter was staged first at the Opéra-Comique 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 had been martyred on twenty-nine occasions the box-office ruled that enough

16588-444: The travails of his career back in Paris". Gounod's next opera was Mireille (1864), a five-act tragedy in a Provençal 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 . Some critics have seen the piece as a forerunner of verismo opera, although one that emphasises elegance over sensationalism. The opera

16731-481: The use of quarter tones , that were too far ahead of his time to be understood by his contemporaries. Reicha's major theoretical and pedagogical works include the following: In addition to these, a number of smaller texts by him exist. These include an outline of Reicha's system for writing fugues, Über das neue Fugensystem (published as a foreword to the 1805 edition of 36 fugues ), Sur la musique comme art purement sentimental (before 1814, literally "On music as

16874-458: The villagers in a waltz ("Ainsi que la brise légère"). Marguerite appears and Faust declares his admiration, but she refuses Faust's arm out of modesty , a quality that makes him love her even more. Marguerite's garden The lovesick boy Siebel leaves a bouquet for Marguerite ("Faites-lui mes aveux"). Faust sends Méphistophélès in search of a gift for Marguerite and sings a cavatina ("Salut, demeure chaste et pure") idealizing Marguerite as

17017-428: The watchful eye and malevolent laughter of Méphistophélès, it is clear that Faust's seduction of Marguerite will be successful. Marguerite's room / A public square outside her house / A cathedral [ Note: The scenes of act 4 are sometimes given in a different order and portions are sometimes shortened or cut in performance. ] After being made pregnant and seemingly abandoned by Faust, Marguerite has given birth and

17160-461: 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 Maurice Grau in the late 19th-century. Some reviewers thought it inappropriate that Juliet was allotted

17303-422: 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

17446-531: 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 the Théâtre-Italien : Rossini's Otello and Mozart's Don Giovanni . Of

17589-445: 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

17732-608: 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. 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

17875-551: Was appointed a knight of the Legion 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 by Jules Barbier and Michel Carré , faithful to the Molière comedy on which it is based, it gained excellent reviews, but its good reception

18018-699: Was appointed official artist to the Duc de Berry , a member of the royal family, and the Gounods' home in Charles's early years was at the Palace 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 the Lycée Saint-Louis . He

18161-490: 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

18304-520: Was born in Prague . His father Šimon, the town piper of the city, died when Anton was just 10 months old. Apparently Reicha's mother was not interested in her son's education, and so in 1780 he ran away from home following a sudden impulse – as he recounted in his memoirs, he jumped onto a passing carriage. He first visited his paternal grandfather in Klatovy , and then his paternal uncle Josef Reicha ,

18447-576: Was buried at the Père Lachaise Cemetery , and Luigi Cherubini resumed the teaching of counterpoint at the Conservatoire, replacing Reicha's heretical work on fugue with his own as the standard text. It is difficult to present a coherent list of Reicha's works , because the opus numbers assigned to them at the time of publication are in disarray, some pieces were supposedly lost, and many works were published several times, sometimes as part of larger collections. His surviving oeuvre covers

18590-437: 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 scholar Roger Nichols and

18733-448: 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 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

18876-441: 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. The musical scene in France had altered considerably during Gounod's absence. After

19019-454: Was gratified when Mendelssohn said of one passage that it was worthy to be signed by Luigi 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". 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

19162-399: Was in this form that the work was first performed. The manager of the Théâtre Lyrique, Léon Carvalho cast his wife Caroline Miolan-Carvalho as Marguerite and there were various changes during production, including the removal and contraction of several numbers. The tenor Hector Gruyer was originally cast as Faust but was found to be inadequate during rehearsals, being eventually replaced by

19305-632: Was lavishly mounted, and the premiere was attended by the Emperor Napoleon III and the Empress Eugénie , 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

19448-749: Was made in 2018 of the 1859 version, by Les Talens Lyriques conducted by Christophe Rousset , which endeavoured to present the opera as first performed at the Théâtre Lyrique "closer in kinship to the traditional opéra comique in its interleaving of musical numbers with spoken passages". The recording, produced by Bru Zane, featured Véronique Gens , Benjamin Bernheim and Andrew Foster-Williams in principal roles. Faust's cabinet Faust , an aging scholar, determines that his studies have come to nothing and have only caused him to miss out on life and love ("Rien! En vain j'interroge"). He attempts to kill himself (twice) with poison but stops each time when he hears

19591-541: 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 the Académie des Beaux-Arts and was promoted within the Legion of Honour. During the 1860s his non-operatic works included

19734-482: 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 praised its "irresistible gaiety". Huebner comments that the opera does not deserve

19877-527: Was performed at the palace of Prince Joseph Franz von Lobkowitz , a prominent patron of Beethoven. Empress Maria Theresa (of Naples and Sicily) commissioned another opera after this performance, Argine, regina di Granata , which was only privately performed. His studies in Hamburg came to fruition here with the publication of several semi-didactic, encyclopedic works such as 36 Fugues for piano (published in 1803, dedicated to Haydn) and L'art de varier ,

20020-479: Was received very coldly". 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

20163-552: 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

20306-470: 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 1848 Revolution had just broken out when I left my job as musical director at

20449-480: 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 , seventeen years his junior, whom he is said to have dubbed "the French Beethoven". Resuming operatic composition, Gounod finished Polyeucte , on which he had been working in London, and during 1876 composed Cinq-Mars , a four-act historical drama set in

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