- Charles Gounod
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Charles Gounod
Charles-François Gounod (French pronunciation: [ʃaʁl fʁɑ̃swa guno]) (17 June 1818 – 17 October[1][2] or 18 October[3][4] 1893) was a French composer, known for his Ave Maria as well as his operas Faust and Roméo et Juliette.
Contents
Biography
Charles Gounod in 1859, the year of the premiere of FaustGounod 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. He was following his father; François-Louis Gounod (d. 1823) had won the second Prix de Rome in painting in 1783.[4] While in Italy, Gounod studied the music of Palestrina and other sacred works of the sixteenth century; these he never ceased to cherish. Around 1846-47 he gave serious consideration to joining the priesthood, but he changed his mind before actually taking holy orders, and went back to composition.[5]
In 1854, Gounod completed a Messe Solennelle, also known as the Saint Cecilia Mass. This work was first performed, in its entirety, for the church of Saint Eustache in Paris on Saint Cecilia's Day, November 22, 1855; from this rendition dates Gounod's fame as a noteworthy composer.
Gounod late in his career.During 1855 Gounod wrote two symphonies. His Symphony No. 1 in D major was the inspiration for the Symphony in C, composed later that year by Georges Bizet, who was then Gounod's 17-year-old student. In the CD era 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. Fanny Mendelssohn, sister of Felix Mendelssohn, introduced the keyboard music of Johann Sebastian Bach to Gounod, who came to revere Bach. For him, The Well-Tempered Clavier was "the law to pianoforte study...the unquestioned textbook of musical composition". It inspired Gounod to devise an improvisation of a melody over the C major Prelude (BWV 846) from the collection's first book. To this melody, in 1859 (after the deaths of both Mendelssohn siblings), Gounod fitted the words of the Ave Maria, resulting in a setting that became world-famous.[6]
Gounod wrote his first opera, Sapho, in 1851, at the urging of a friend of his, the singer Pauline Viardot; it was a commercial failure. He had no great theatrical success until Faust (1859), derived from Goethe. This remains the composition for which he is best known; and although it took a while to achieve popularity, it became one of the most frequently staged operas of all time, with no fewer than 2,000 performances of the work having taken place by 1975 at the Paris Opéra alone, not counting other theatres.[7] The romantic and melodious Roméo et Juliette (based on the Shakespeare play Romeo and Juliet), premiered in 1867, is revived now and then but has never come close to matching Faust's popular following. Mireille, first performed in 1864, has been admired by connoisseurs rather than by the general public. The other Gounod operas have fallen into oblivion.
Caricature from Punch, 1882From 1870 to 1874 Gounod lived in England. In 17 Morden Road, Blackheath. A blue plaque has been put up on the house to show where he lived. [8] He became the first conductor of what is now the Royal Choral Society. Much of his music from this time is vocal. He became entangled with the amateur English singer Georgina Weldon,[9] a relationship (platonic, it seems) which ended in great acrimony and embittered litigation.[10] Gounod had lodged with Weldon and her husband in London's Tavistock House.
Later in his life, Gounod returned to his early religious impulses, writing much sacred music. His Pontifical Anthem (Marche Pontificale, 1869) eventually (1949) became the official national anthem of Vatican City. He expressed a desire to compose his Messe à la mémoire de Jeanne d'Arc (1887) while kneeling on the stone on which Joan of Arc knelt at the coronation of Charles VII of France.[4] A devout Catholic, he 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.[4] In 1893, shortly after he had put the finishing touches to a requiem written for his grandson, he died of a stroke in Saint-Cloud, France.
One of Gounod's short pieces for piano, "Funeral March of a Marionette", received a new and unexpected lease of life from 1955 when it was first used as the theme for the television series Alfred Hitchcock Presents. His secular piano-accompanied songs were numerous and much praised by Ravel, but are seldom heard in recitals today.
Compositions
Main article: List of compositions by Charles GounodAudio files
References
- ^ Harding, James. Gounod, Stein & Day, 1973.
- ^ Biography at charles-gounod.com
- ^ Slonimsky, Nicholas, ed. Baker's Biographical Dictionary of Musicians, 7th ed.
- ^ a b c d Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, 5th ed. 1954.
- ^ Cooper M. French Music from the death of Berlioz to the death of Fauré. Oxford, Oxford University Press, 1951.
- ^ Joan Benson: Bach and the Clavier
- ^ Giroud, V. French Opera: A Short History. Yale University Press, 2010.
- ^ http://openplaques.org/plaques/5286
- ^ Weldon G. My Orphanage and Gounod in England. London, 1882.
- ^ Huebner S. The Operas of Charles Gounod. Oxford. Oxford University Press, 1990.
Sources
- "Charles Gounod: Works". Charles GOUNOD: The Website !. http://www.charles-gounod.com/vi/oeuvres/index.htm. Retrieved 31 March 2005.
- Sadie, S. (ed.) (1980) The New Grove Dictionary of Music & Musicians, [vol. # 7].
- Scholes. The Oxford Companion to Music, 10th ed., pp. 416–417.
External links
Portraits
- Charles-Octave Blanchard, oil on canvas, Rome, 1841, Musée de la Vie romantique, Hôtel Scheffer-Renan, Paris
- Ary Scheffer, oil on canvas, Paris, ca. 1858, Musée national du château et des Trianons de Versailles, Château de Versailles
Articles
- Works by Charles Gounod at Project Gutenberg
"Charles-François Gounod". Catholic Encyclopedia. New York: Robert Appleton Company. 1913.- Chisholm, Hugh, ed (1911). "Gounod, Charles François". Encyclopædia Britannica (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press.
Sheet music
- Free scores by Charles Gounod in the Werner Icking Music Archive (WIMA)
- Free scores by Charles Gounod at the International Music Score Library Project
- Score of "Chants sacrés: 60 motets avec accompt. d’orgue ou piano pour messes, saluts, mariages, offices divers" From Sibley Music Library Digital Scores Collection
- Free scores by Charles Gounod in the Choral Public Domain Library (ChoralWiki)
- Free sheet music on Cantorion.org
- Free scores at the Mutopia Project
Recordings
- Gounod cylinder recordings, from the Cylinder Preservation and Digitization Project at the University of California, Santa Barbara Library.
- Roméo et Juliette Complete MP3 Creative Commons Recording
- Performance of Ave Maria
- Free Mp3 file of the Fantasie elegante on Gounod's "Faust" by Ignace Leybach, played by John Kersey
- Sound-bites from String Quartet in A minor & short bio
Categories:- 1818 births
- 1893 deaths
- Musicians from Paris
- French composers
- French Roman Catholics
- Opera composers
- Prix de Rome for composition
- Royal Philharmonic Society Gold Medallists
- Romantic composers
- National anthem writers
- Academics of the Conservatoire de Paris
- Honorary Members of the Royal Philharmonic Society
- Ballet composers
- Lycée Saint-Louis alumni
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