Gounod, Charles (François)

Gounod, Charles (François), famous French composer; b. Paris, June 17, 1818; d. St. Cloud, Oct. 18, 1893. His father, Jean François Gounod, was a painter, winner of the 2nd Grand Prix de Rome, who died when Gounod was a small child. His mother, a most accomplished woman, supervised his literary, artistic, and musical education, and taught him piano. He completed his academic studies at the Lycee St. Louis; in 1836 he entered the Paris Cons., studying with Halévy, Le Sueur, and Paër. In 1837 he won the 2nd Prix de Rome with his cantata Marie Stuart et Rizzio; in 1839 he won the Grand Prix with his cantata Fernand. In Rome, he studied church music, particularly the works of Palestrina; composed a Mass for 3 Voices and Orch., which was performed at the church of San Luigi dei Francesi. In 1842, during a visit to Vienna, he conducted a Requiem of his own; upon his return to Paris, he became précentor and organist of the Missions Étrangéres; studied theology for 2 years, but decided against taking Holy Orders; yet he was often referred to as 1’Abbé Gounod; some religious choruses were publ. in 1846 as composed by Abbé Charles Gounod. Soon he tried his hand at stage music. On April 16, 1851, his first opera, Sapho, was produced at the Opera, with only moderate success; he revised it much later, extending it to 4 acts from the original 3, and it was performed again on April 2, 1884; but it was unsuccessful. His second opera, La Nonne sanglante, in 5 acts, was staged at the Opera on Oct. 18, 1854; there followed a comic opera, Le Medecin malgre lui, after Moliere (Jan. 15, 1858), which also failed to realize his expectations. In the meantime, he was active in other musical ways in Paris; he conducted the choral society Orphéon (1852-60) and composed for it several choruses. Gounod’s great success came with the production of Faust, after Goethe (Theatre-Lyrique, March 19, 1859; perf. with additional recitatives and ballet at the Opera, March 3, 1869); Faust remained Gounod’s greatest masterpiece, and indeed the most successful French opera of the 19th century, triumphant all over the world without any sign of diminishing effect through a century of changes in musical tastes. however, it was widely criticized for the melodramatic treatment of Goethe’s poem by the librettists, Barbier and Carré, and for the somewhat sentimental style of Gounod’s music. The succeeding operas Phiémon et Baucis (Paris, Feb. 18, 1860), La Colombe (Baden-Baden, Aug. 3, 1860), La Reine de Saba (Paris, Feb. 29, 1862), and Mireille (Paris, March 19, 1864) were only partially successful, but with Romeo et Juliette (Paris, April 27, 1867), Gounod recaptured universal acclaim. In 1870, during the Franco-Prussian War, he went to London, where he organized Gounod’s Choir, and presented concerts; when Paris fell, he wrote an elegiac cantata, Gallia, to words from the Lamentations of Jeremiah, which he conducted in London on May 1, 1871; it was later performed in Paris. He wrote some incidental music for productions in Paris: Les Deux Reines, to a drama by Legouve (Nov. 27, 1872), and Jeanne d’Arc, to Barbier’s poem (Nov. 8, 1873). In 1874, he returned to Paris; there he produced his operas Cinq-Mars (April 5, 1877), Polyeucte (Oct. 7, 1878), and Le Tribut de Zamora (April 1,1881), without signal success. The last years of his life were devoted mainly to sacred works, of which the most important was La Rédemption, a trilogy, first performed at the Birmingham Festival in 1882; another sacred trilogy, Mors et vita, also written for the Birmingham Festival, followed in 1885. He continued to write religious works in close succession, including a Te Deum (1886), La Communion des saints (1889), Messe dite le Clovis (1890), La Contemplation de Saint François au pied de la croix (1890), and Tantum ergo (1892). A Requiem (1893) was left unfinished, and was arranged by Henri Büsser after Gounod’s death. One of his most popular settings to religious words is Ave Maria, adapted to the 1st prelude of Bach’s Well-tempered Clavier, but its original version was Méditation sur le premier Prelude de Piano de /.S. Bach for Violin and Piano (1853); the words were added later (1859). Other works are 2 syms. (1855), Marche funébre d’une marionnette for Orch. (1873), Petite symphonic for Wind Instruments (1888), 3 string quartets, a number of piano pieces, and songs. Among his literary works were Ascanio de Saint-Saësns (1889), Le Don Juan de Mozart (1890; in Eng., 1895), and an autobiography, Mémoires d’un artiste (Paris, 1896; Eng. tr. by W. Hutchenson, N.Y., 1896).

Bibliography

M. de Bovet, C. G. (Paris, 1890; Eng. tr., London, 1891); L. Pagnerre, C. G., Sa vie et ses oeuvres (Paris, 1890); C. Saint- saëns, C. G. et le Don Juan de Mozart (Paris, 1893); T. Dubois, Notice sur C. G. (Paris, 1894); P. Voss, C. G.: Ein Lebensbild (Leipzig, 1895); H. Tolhurst, G. (London, 1905); P. Hillemacher, C. G. (Paris, 1906); C. Bellaigue, G. (Paris, 1910);J.-G. Prod’homme and A. Dandelot, G.: Sa vie et ses oeuvres (2 vols., Paris, 1911); H. Soubies and H. de Curzon, Documents inedits sur le Faust de G. (Paris, 1912); P. Landormy, G. (Paris, 1942); idem, Faust de G.: Etude et analyse (Paris, 1944); J. Harding, G. (London, 1973); M. Rustman, Lyric Opera: A Study of the Contribution ofC. G. (diss., Univ. of Kans., 1986); S. Huebner, The Operas of G. (Oxford, 1990); M. Galland, ed., C. G., Mireille: Dossier de presse parisienne (1864) (Bietigheim, 1995).

—Nicolas Slonimsky/Laura Kuhn/Dennis McIntire