Home | Archive | In memoriam

Charles Gounod 1818–1893

On a future occasion we propose to devote an article to the work of Gounod in the sphere of secular and sacred music. But with the news of his death fresh upon us, and in the consciousness that eternal silence has taken hold upon his gracious and enchanting muse, it is more fitting to defer criticism for the moment, and confine ourselves to the task of recording the leading features of his long and distinguished career.

Charles François Gounod was born in Paris on June 17, 1818, in a humble ‘apartment’ in the Rue de l’Eperon. His grandfather, who lived to the age of ninety, had been a ‘furbisher of the King’s weapons’ – an office which carried with it free quarters in the Louvre – and his father, an artist and engraver of considerable talent, had gained the second Prix de Rome in 1783. He married late in life, and died between 1825 and 1830. His wife was an excellent musician, and gave pianoforte lessons for many years. She was Gounod’s first teacher, and being a woman of strong character and great piety exerted a powerful influence over her impressionable son. His bent for music manifested itself at an early age, but at the Lycée Saint-Louis, his head-master, M. Poirson, declared that he had ‘the bump of Latin and Greek,’ and would die a professor, until a practical test of his accomplishments convinced him that music, and music alone, was the lad’s true vocation. Before leaving school, le petit Charles had studied harmony under Reicha. At the Conservatoire, which he entered at the age of sixteen, he was the pupil of Halévy for counterpoint and fugue and Lesueur for composition. On the latter’s death, in 1837, Gounod was passed on to Paër. In the same year he ran second for the Prix de Rome, carrying off the first prize by twenty-five votes to two in 1839 with his cantata ‘Fernand.’ To these records of Gounod’s pupilage may be added the fact that a movement of a symphony by him was performed at one of the Conservatoire Concerts in November, 1837, and that a year later an ‘Agnus Dei’ by him was heard at a Concert given in memory of their master by the pupils of Lesueur.

On gaining the Prix de Rome Gounod started off at once for the Eternal City. Some musicians have chafed under the restriction of this obligatory residence. To Gounod, with his taste for classics and ecclesiasticism, it was an unmixed pleasure. He threw himself with the utmost ardour into the study of Palestrina’s works, which he took for his model, and in 1841 a Mass, with orchestral accompaniment and solos for tenor and contralto, performed at the Church of San Luigi dei Francesi, gained for him the titles of Honorary Organist for life at that church. During this period he composed some of his most beautiful songs, notably ‘Le Soir’ and ‘Le Vallon,’ and made the acquaintance of Mendelssohn’s sister, Fanny, in whose letter may be found a most charming picture of the impulsive young Frenchman, full of talent and of charm, enjoying life to the utmost, and always ready to break out into dithyrambics at the slightest provocation. After three years at Rome, Gounod spent nine months in Vienna studying Bach and ‘living on counterpoint,’ as he afterwards described it. On All Souls’ Day, 1842, a Requiem Mass of his was performed in the Church of St. Charles. It is worthy of mention that two of the themes in this work re-appear in his later compositions, the Sedisti lassus – of which Mendelssohn said that it might have been signed by Cherubini – in the ‘Mors et Vita’ and the theme of the ‘Dies irae’ as Marguerite’s final appeal to divine pity. Fanny Hensel had given Gounod a letter to her brother at Liepzig, where he was most cordially received by the composer of the ‘Elijah,’ and also met Robert Schumann. He also paid a visit to the Hensels in Berlin, of which a most interesting record will be found in Fanny Hensel’s letters. In particular she mentions his interest in oratorio music, and his intention to treat the exploit of ‘Judith’ in a work of this form. On his return to Paris the desire to retire from the world, which had already laid powerful hold upon him at Rome, returned with redoubled force. He became Organist to the Church of the Missions Etrangères, studied theology at the School of the Carmelites, and led a life of such cloistral seclusion that he was known as the Abbé Gounod, and his admission to the priesthood was actually – though incorrectly – announced in the press in February, 1846. Happily for his art, his mother, though a most devout woman, realised that his ardent and emotional nature rendered him unfit for a life of renunciation, and exerted all her influence in dissuading him from entering the Church. The period of doubt and hesitation extended over several years, until his fate was settled by a chance introduction to Madame Viardot-Garcia. This great artist recognised his talent at once, and persuaded him to accompany her on a tour to England in the winter of 1850-51. Here it was that Gounod first met with unequivocal encouragement in the press. For at one of Mr. Hullah’s Concerts, held in St. Martin’s Hall, in January, 1851, selections from his ‘Messe Solennelle’ and a secular Scena for bass were performed to the satisfaction of a critical audience, and elicited a glowing eulogium from the Athenaeum of the following 18th. In this notice the young composer was hailed as a master, and confident predictions were uttered as to his career. The authorship has been assigned, on good authority, to M. Viardot, though, no doubt, Henry Chorley, already music critic of the Athenaeum, was widely responsible for the form in which the notice appeared. It passed unnoticed in England, but it created a great stir in France, where – no doubt through the good services of the Viardots – it was widely disseminated through the press, and stimulated curiosity as to his forthcoming début as an operatic composer. For Madame Viardot’s confidence in her new protégè’s genius was such that, in renewing her engagement at the Opera, she expressly stipulated for the production, within a certain time of a work from Gounod’s pen. That work was ‘Sapho,’ a three-act opera to a poem by Emilie Augier, which was duly produced, with Madame Viardot as the heroine, on March 16, 1851. ‘Sapho’ contains some beautiful music, notably the Goatherd’s song and the final stanzas sung by the heroine, but it only achieved a succès d’estime. In the following year, in which he wrote the excellent incidental music to Ponsard’s ‘Ulysse’ at the Théâtre Français, he assumed the direction of the Orpheonic Society, for which he wrote numerous choruses, motets, and masses for male voices. Here too, he produced works by Palestrina and Bach, and gained invaluable practical experience as a composer of concerted vocal music. In the same year he married Mdlle. Zimmermann, daughter of one of the professors at the Conservatoire. Gounod’s next essay – at the Académie Impériale – was ‘La Nonne sanglante’ (October 18, 1854), the libretto to which, based by Scribe on Lewis’s novel ‘The Monk,’ had been refused in succession by Meyerbeer, Halévy, and Berlioz. And here it is worthy of note, as M. Pougin points out, that not one of the works destined by him in the first instance for the National Opera House proved a success. Neither ‘La Nonne’ nor ‘La Reine de Saba’ (February 29, 1862), ‘Polyeucte’ (October 7, 1878) nor ‘Le Tribut de Zamorna’ (April 1, 1881), established themselves as part of the regular répertoire, while ‘Faust’ and ‘Roméo et Juliette,’ so often and triumphantly performed on these boards, had been originally produced at the Théâtre Lyrique. It was at the last named house that Gounod’s ‘Médecin malgré lui’ was also given for the first time on January 15, 1858; but, in spite of its irresistible gaiety, it failed to impress the public, and was not revived until 1886. Nor is the history of ‘Faust’ creditable to the Parisian public. It was declined in the first instance at the National Opera House on the ground that it was not showy enough; and after being accepted at the Théâtre Lyrique, was shelved for a whole year because of the production of Dennery’s drama on the same subject at the Porte St. Martin. And when finally, after a variety of vicissitudes, this enchanting work at last saw the light on March 19, 1859, neither press nor public were convinced. Carvalho believed in the work and kept ‘Faust’ in the bills for four months, but the audiences were attracted more by the talent of his wife than the merit of the music. Then he failed, but the publisher, Choudens, who had invested his entire capital in purchasing the copyright for the modest sum of £400, carries the work, the composer, and the prima donna across the frontier, and after a triumphal progress in Germany, Belgium, Italy, and England, ‘Faust’ returned to Paris in 1862, as was, at last, acclaimed as a masterpiece. It was produced for the first time at the Grand Opéra in 1869 with the new ballet Act, and attained its 500th representation on those boards on November 4, 1887. ‘Roméo et Juliette,’ produced at the Lyrique on April 27, 1867, was not given at the Grand Opéra till November, 1888. The dates of the productions of Gounod’s other operas are as follows: ‘Philémon et Baucis,’ Théâtre Lyrique, February 18, 1860; ‘Mireille,’ Lyrique, March 19, 1864; ‘La Colombe,’ Baden-Baden, 1860; ‘Cinq Mars,’ Opéra Comique, April 5, 1877. The list of his dramatic works may be completed by the choruses and incidental music to Legouvé’s ‘Les Deux Reines,’ Théâtre Ventadour, November 27, 1872; Barbier’s ‘Jeanne d’Arc,’ Graîté, November 8, 1873; and the music to the ‘Drames Sacrés,’ at the Vaudeville in March, 1893. He is known to have written, to Molière’s original text, an opera, ‘Georges Dandin,’ the score of which is said to be in England, and to have partially completed the score of ‘Héloïse et Abélard.’ In the intervals of his operatic composition Gounod found time to write three Symphonies, two of which have been heard at the Crystal Palace; a short Oratorio, ‘Tobie’; a dozen Masses; a Stabat Mater; several choruses for male and mixed voices; pianoforte pieces; and an immense number of songs to French, Italian, and English words. At the time of the Franco-Prussian war he took up his residence in England, and lived amongst us till 1875. To this period belong his fine Cantata ‘Gallia,’ given at the Albert Hall in May 1871; the music to ‘Les Deux Reines,’ ‘Jeanne d’Arc,’ and ‘Georges Dandin’; the orchestration of ‘Polyeucte,’ the whole of which he afterwards re-wrote from memory; and a number of songs and concerted pieces, many of which were specially written for the choir which he himself founded and conducted. The last decade of his life was almost entirely devoted to the composition of sacred music. ‘The Redemption,’ sketched as early as 1868, was produced with immense success under the composer’s direction at the Birmingham Festival of 1882, and ‘Mors et Vita’ at the gathering of 1885. Amongst his latest works mention must be made of a fourth ‘Messe Solennelle,’ a Mass in honour of Jeanne d’Arc, and the ‘Hymn of our Lady of France,’ a Te Deum, and a Requiem.

The foregoing bare catalogue gives some idea of the remarkable industry and versatility of the great master whose loss is deplored by the entire musical world. Alike in his gayest and his gravest moods he was an ideal representative of the charm, the elegance, and the stately grace of the best type of Frenchman. He was a very great melodist, with an unerring sense of beauty and symmetry, and his instinct for colour was so keen that with the minimum of means he never failed to produce the richest and most impressive effects. Lastly, to his rare accomplishments as a musician he added the fascinations of a most winning personality and the attractions of a highly cultivated intellect. He sang exquisitely, he was a brilliant conversationalist, a fine scholar, a most suggestive and witty writer, and a master of the art of irony and badinage. Gounod was not a genius of the inaccessible order. He found it hard to close his doors to any one, so great was his bonhomie. His optimism remained with him to the end. And although he had achieved his task on earth, and earned the rest into which he has entered, his loss has evoked the most genuine regret all over the civilised world in the hearts of scores of thousands whom he has cheered, delighted, and soothed by the magic of his muse.

Musical Times, November 1893