Share on Facebook Share on Twitter Email
Answers.com

Charles Gounod

 
Britannica Concise Encyclopedia: Charles François Gounod

(born June 17, 1818, Paris, Fr. — died Oct. 18, 1893, Saint-Cloud, near Paris) French composer. He studied music at the Paris Conservatory and in Rome. He also studied for the priesthood and worked as an organist, and he remained torn between the theatre and the church. His reputation largely rests on his hugely popular opera Faust (1859). His 15 other operas include Romeo and Juliet (1867), The Mock Doctor (1858), Philemon and Baucis (1860), and Mireille (1864); other works include 17 masses, more than 150 songs, and 2 symphonies.

For more information on Charles François Gounod, visit Britannica.com.

Search unanswered questions...
Enter a question here...
Search: All sources Community Q&A Reference topics
Music Encyclopedia: Charles (François) Gounod
Top

(b Paris, 17 June 1818; d St Cloud, 18 Oct 1893). French composer. He studied privately with Reicha and at the Paris Conservatoire with Halévy (counterpoint) and Le Sueur (composition), winning the Prix de Rome in 1839. At Rome (1840-42) he was deeply impressed by the 16th-century polyphonic music (particularly Palestrina's) he heard in the Sistine Chapel and wrote some rather austere masses; for a time a church organist in Paris, he considered joining the priesthood. The climax of his liturgical work came in 1855 with the florid Messe solennelle de Ste Cécile, a favourite setting scarcely superseded by his 12 later ones (1870-92). Meanwhile he wrote a Gluckian, then a Meyerbeerian opera, both failures; the succeeding five, all first performed at the Théâtre-Lyrique, are the works by which he is remembered, namely the small-scale Le médecin malgré lui (1858) and Philémon et Baucis (1860), the triumphant Faust (1859), in which sensitive musical characterization and a refreshing naturalness set new standards on the French operatic stage, and the major successes Mireille (1864) and Roméo et Juliette (1867).

In 1870 Gounod took refuge in England from the Franco-Prussian War, staying some four years to exploit the English demand for choral music. The first conductor of the Royal Albert Hall Choral Society (1871), he produced dozens of choruses and songs. But he experienced considerable intrigue in his private life, effectively marking the end of his fruitfulness as a composer. His oratorios for Birmingham, La rédemption and Mors et vita, if banal and facilely emotional, were nonetheless successful. Gounod's influence on the next generation of French composers, including Bizet, Fauré and especially Massenet, was enormous. Tchaikovsky and later Poulenc, Auric and Ravel admired his clean workmanship, delicate sentiment, gift for orchestral colour and, in his best songs, unpretentious lyrical charm.

works:
Dramatic music
  • Le médecin malgré lui (1858)
  • Faust (1859)
  • Philémon et Baucis (1860)
  • Mireille (1864)
  • Roméo et Juliette (1867)
  • Polyeucte (1878)
  • 6 other operas
  • incidental music to Jeanne d′Arc (1873) and 4 other plays
Vocal music
  • Messe solennelle de Ste Cécile (1855)
  • 16 other masses
  • 4 oratorios, incl. La rédemption (1882), Mors et vita (?1885)
  • sacred pieces
  • partsongs, solo songs, duets
Instrumental music
  • 2 syms.
  • Petite symphonie, wind (1885)
  • Str Qt chamber and orch pieces
  • pf, org music


Biography: Charles François Gounod
Top

The French composer Charles François Gounod (1818-1893) is best known for his operas. His music tends to be more lyric than dramatic, his melodic writing at its best revealing a considerable warmth of feeling.

Charles Gounod was born on June 17, 1818, in Paris. His father was a prominent painter; his mother was a pianist, and Charles received his first musical education from her. In 1836 he entered the Paris Conservatory, where he studied counterpoint with Jacques Fromentin Halévy and composition with Jean François Lesueur.

In 1837 Gounod won second place in the coveted Prix de Rome award and in 1839 the Grand Prix. This enabled him to study in Italy, where he was exposed to the choral music of Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina. This remained an important influence throughout his life, perhaps even to the detriment of his own choral writing. Returning from Rome through Austria, he also had the chance to hear some of the more romantic compositions of Robert Schumann and Felix Mendelssohn.

For a time Gounod studied theology and even considered becoming a priest. His theological interests ultimately earned him the title "Abbé." Eventually he returned to music, and he attempted to gain success through the composition of operas, the surest road to fame for any French composer. His first opera, Sapho (1851), achieved only a moderate success. With his fourth opera, Faust (1859), he achieved international renown. Although both the libretto and the music have been criticized for their sentimental oversimplification of Goethe's great drama, Faust maintained its position as the most popular French opera in the repertoire for almost a century. Gounod completed 12 operas, but only one other, Roméo et Juliette (composed 1864, first performed 1867), has remained in the repertoire. Its fame rests on Juliette's waltz song and the numerous love duets.

From 1870 to 1875 Gounod lived in London, where, in addition to presenting concerts and composing a number of religious works, he organized the Gounod Choir, later to become the Royal Choral Society. In his last years he concentrated almost exclusively on composing large choral works, but none of these added to his stature as a composer. He died at Saint-Cloud on Oct. 18, 1893.

Two short compositions by Gounod have attained sufficient popularity to merit mention. One is the orchestral Funeral March for a Marionette (1873), which captures perfectly the peculiar humor suggested in the title. The other is the Ave Maria (1859) based on Johann Sebastian Bach's first prelude from The Well-tempered Clavier. This has been criticized as a sentimentalization of the work of a great master, but it is in actuality an ingenious display of compositional craft in which Gounod kept Bach's prelude unchanged but used it as an accompaniment for his own expressive melody.

Further Reading

Gounod wrote his Autobiographical Reminiscences (trans. 1896; repr. 1970). There are no major biographies of Gounod in English. Norman Demuth, Introduction to the Music of Gounod (1950), is a study of his work. Brief material on Gounod is in Edward J. Dent, Opera (1940; rev. ed. 1949), and Donald Jay Grout, A Short History of Opera (1947; 2d ed. 1965).

French Literature Companion: Charles Gounod
Top

Gounod, Charles (1818-52). French composer; his opera Faust (1859) won lasting popularity.

Spotlight: Charles Gounod
Top

From our Archives: Today's Highlights, March 19, 2006

On this date in 1859, Charles Gounod's opera, Faust, premiered in Paris. Though it got off to a rocky start, after delays and rejections (because it wasn't "showy" enough), the opera became a mainstay of many of the opera theaters over the years. New York's Metropolitan Opera House opened with a production of Faust in 1883. Gounod based his opera on the German alchemist who, according to legend, sold his soul to the devil in exchange for youth, power and knowledge.
 
Columbia Encyclopedia: Charles François Gounod
Top
Gounod, Charles François (shärl fräNswä' gūnō'), 1818-93, French composer, studied at the Paris Conservatory and received the Grand Prix de Rome in 1839. His fame rests chiefly on his operas Faust (1859) and Romeo and Juliet (1867), marked by their richly lyrical romantic music. One other opera, Mireille (1864), had some success. His oratorios La Rédemption (1882) and Mors et Vita (1885) and his funeral cantata, Gallia (1871) are worthy of note. He spent some years in the study of theology and greatly admired the church music of Palestrina.

Bibliography

See his reminiscences (tr. 1896, repr. 1970); biography by J. Harding (1973).

Artist: Charles Gounod
Top
Charles Gounod
  • Period: Romantic (1820-1869)
  • Country: France
  • Born: June 17, 1818 in Paris, France
  • Died: October 17, 1893 in Saint-Cloud, France
  • Genres: Chamber Music, Choral Music, Keyboard Music, Miscellaneous Music, Opera, Symphony, Vocal Music

Biography

Charles Gounod is best known for his operas Faust and Romeo et Juliette and for his Ave Maria (1859). Except for concertos, he composed music in the major genres, but with varying success in the instrumental realm. Gounod was more at home in the vocal arena, particularly in opera and sacred music. Though his reputation began to fade even before he died, he is still generally regarded as a major figure in nineteenth century French music. Stylistically, he was a conservative whose influence nevertheless extended to Bizet, Saint-Saëns, and Massenet. He could not be called a trailblazer or the founder of any movement or school. His works are tuneful, his vocal writing imaginative, and orchestral scoring masterly. Gounod's compositions, even his two symphonies and lesser known operas, are occasionally explored today, and the aforementioned Faust and Romeo et Juliette and Ave Maria are widely performed and recorded.

Gounod was born on June 17, 1818. His mother was a pianist who served as the young boy's first teacher. While still in his youth she arranged for him to receive composition lessons from Anton Reicha. After Reicha's death, Gounod began studies at the Paris Conservatory, where he won a Grand Prix in 1839 for his Cantata Fernand.

After further composition studies in Rome, where he focused on sixteenth century church music, particularly the works of Palestrina, he became deeply interested in religion and by 1845 was contemplating the priesthood. Though he would eventually reject the idea and marry, he remained religious throughout his life and wrote many sacred works, including masses, the most popular being the 1855 St. Cecilia Mass. In that year Gounod also turned out two symphonies, which achieved attention but not lasting success. It was the 1859 opera Faust, however, that, after a slow start, became Gounod's calling card. Mireille (1864) and especially Romeo et Juliette (1867) added to his reputation, not only in France but throughout Europe.

From 1870-1875 Gounod lived in England owing to the exigencies of the Franco-Prussian War. In his years there and in the period following his return to France, Gounod wrote much music, especially religious music, but never again attained the kind of success he experienced in the 1850s and '60s. Among his more compelling and imaginative late works is the 1885 Petite Symphonie, (scored for nine instruments). Gounod died in St. Cloud on October 18, 1893. ~ Robert Cummings, All Music Guide
Wikipedia: Charles Gounod
Top
Charles Gounod.

Charles-François Gounod (IPA: [ɡuno]; 17 June[1] 1818 – 18 October[2] 1893) was a French composer, best known for his Ave Maria as well as his operas Faust and Roméo et Juliette.

Contents

Biography

Gounod was born in Paris, the son of a pianist mother and an artist father. His mother was his first piano teacher. Under her tutelage, Gounod first showed his musical talents. He entered the Paris Conservatoire where he studied under Fromental Halévy and Pierre Zimmermann (he later married Zimmermann's daughter). In 1839, he won the Prix de Rome for his cantata Fernand. In this, he was following in his father's footsteps; François-Louis Gounod (d. 1823) had won the second Prix de Rome in painting in 1783.[3]

Caricature from Punch, 1882.
Charles Gounod in 1859, the year of the premiere of Faust

He subsequently went to Italy where he studied the music of Palestrina and other sacred works of the sixteenth century. Around 1846-47 he began studying for the priesthood, but he changed his mind and went back to composition[4].

In 1848, Gounod started writing a "Messe Solennelle", also known as the "Saint Cecilia Mass". This work (which still crops up quite often in concerts and on disc) was first performed in London during 1851, and from its premiere dates Gounod's fame as a noteworthy composer.

During 1855 Gounod wrote two symphonies. His Symphony No. 1 in D major was the inspiration for the Symphony in C, composed later that same year by Georges Bizet, who was then Gounod's 17-year-old student. Despite their charm and brilliance, Gounod's symphonies are largely neglected nowadays. In the CD era, however, a few recordings of these pieces have emerged: by Michel Plasson conducting the Orchestre national du Capitole de Toulouse, and by Sir Neville Marriner with the Academy of St. Martin in the Fields.

Gounod wrote his first opera, Sapho, in 1851, but had no great theatrical success until Faust (1859), based on the play by Goethe. This remains his best-known work, and although it took a while to achieve great renown, it eventually became one of the most frequently staged operas of all time. The romantic and highly melodious Roméo et Juliette (based on the Shakespeare play), premiered in 1867, is also performed and recorded now and then, even though it has never come close to matching Faust's popularity. Mireille of 1864, a charming and graceful composition, has been admired by connoisseurs rather than by the general public.

From 1870 to 1874 Gounod lived in England, becoming the first conductor of what is now the Royal Choral Society. Much of Gounod's music from this time is vocal in nature. He became entangled with the amateur English singer Georgina Weldon[5], a relationship (platonic, it seems) which ended in great acrimony.[6]

Fanny Mendelssohn introduced the keyboard music of J. S. Bach to Gounod, who came to revere Bach hugely. For him, The Well-Tempered Clavier was "the law to pianoforte study ... the unquestioned textbook of musical composition".

Later in his life, Gounod returned to his early religious impulses, writing much religious music. His earlier work included an improvisation of a melody over the C major Prelude (BWV 846) from The Well-Tempered Clavier, to which in 1859 Gounod set the words of Ave Maria, resulting in his composition Ave Maria, a setting that became world-famous.[7]. He also wrote a Pontifical Anthem, now the official national anthem of the Vatican City. He also wanted to compose his Messe à la mémoire de Jeanne d'Arc while kneeling on the stone on which Joan of Arc knelt at the coronation of Charles VII of France.[3] A devout Catholic, Gounod had on his piano a music-rack in which was carved an image of the face of Jesus.

He was made a Grand Officer of the Légion d'honneur in July 1888.[3] In 1893, apparently shortly after he had put the finishing touches to a requiem written for his grandson, he died in Saint-Cloud, France.

One of his short pieces, Funeral March of a Marionette, became well known as the theme to Alfred Hitchcock Presents.

Compositions

Operas

Oratorios

  • Tobie (1854)
  • Gallia (1871)
  • Jésus sur le lac de Tibériade (1873)
  • La rédemption (1882) (commissioned for, and premiered at the Birmingham Triennial Music Festival)
  • Christus factus est (1842)
  • Mors et Vita (1884)
  • Requiem (1891)
Charles Gounod's burial site (Auteuil, Paris, France)

Symphonies

  • Symphony No. 1 in D major (1855) (probably begun around 1843)[8]
  • Symphony No. 2 in E flat major (1855)

Chamber music

  • String Quartet in A minor (published as No.3)
  • String Quartet in C minor "Petit quatuor"
  • String Quartet No.2 in A Major
  • String Quartet No.3 in F Major
  • String Quartet in G minor
  • Petite Symphonie pour neuf instruments à vent (1885) 'Little Symphony for Winds'

Instrumental

Sources

  • Sadie, S. (ed.) (1980) The New Grove Dictionary of Music & Musicians, [vol. # 7].

References

  1. ^ Baker's 7th ed.; also Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, online
  2. ^ ibid, James Harding's Gounod (Stein & Day, 1973) gives 17 October as does [1]
  3. ^ a b c Grove's Dictionary of Music and Musicioans, 5th ed. 1954
  4. ^ Cooper M. French Music from the death of Berlioz to the death of Fauré. Oxford, Oxford University Press, 1951.
  5. ^ Weldon G. My Orphanage and Gounod in England. London, 1882.
  6. ^ Huebner S. The Operas of Charles Gounod. Oxford, Oxford University Press, 1990.
  7. ^ Joan Benson: Bach and the Clavier
  8. ^ Steinberg, Michael (2008). "Program Notes for a Performance of Bizet's Symphony". San Francisco Symphony. http://www.sfsymphony.org/music/ProgramNotes.aspx?id=30134. Retrieved 2008-04-12. 
  9. ^ Richard K. Fitzgerald (2006-07-25). "Gounod’s "Roméo et Juliette" at Wolf Trap". http://ionarts.blogspot.com/2006/07/gounods-romo-et-juliette-at-wolf-trap.html. 

External links

Articles

Sheet music

Recordings


 
 

 

Copyrights:

Britannica Concise Encyclopedia. Britannica Concise Encyclopedia. © 2006 Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc. All rights reserved.  Read more
Music Encyclopedia. The Concise Grove Dictionary of Music. Copyright © 1994 by Oxford University Press, Inc.. All rights reserved.  Read more
Biography. © 2006 through a partnership of Answers Corporation. All rights reserved.  Read more
French Literature Companion. The New Oxford Companion to Literature in French. Copyright © 1995, 2005 by Oxford University Press. All rights reserved.  Read more
Answers Corporation Spotlight. © 1999-2009 by Answers Corporation. All rights reserved.  Read more
Columbia Encyclopedia. The Columbia Electronic Encyclopedia, Sixth Edition Copyright © 2003, Columbia University Press. Licensed from Columbia University Press. All rights reserved. www.cc.columbia.edu/cu/cup/ Read more
Artist. Copyright © 2009 All Media Guide, LLC. Content provided by All Music Guide ®, a trademark of All Media Guide, LLC. All rights reserved.  Read more
Wikipedia. This article is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License. It uses material from the Wikipedia article "Charles Gounod" Read more

 

Mentioned in

From Today's Highlights
March 19, 2006

Musical ideas sprang to my mind like a flight of butterflies, and all I had to do was to stretch out my hand to catch them.
- Charles Gounod

See more quotes