Moscheles, one of the severe classical pianists of the German school,
writes as follows, in 1861, in a letter to a friend--"In Gounod I hail
a real composer. I have heard his 'Faust' both at Leipsic and Dresden,
and am charmed with that refined, piquant music. Critics may rave if
they like against the mutilation of Goethe's masterpiece; the opera is
sure to attract, for it is a fresh, interesting work, with a copious
flow of melody and lovely instrumentation."
Henry Chorley in his _Thirty Years' Musical Recollections_, writing of
the year 1851, says--"To a few hearers, since then grown into a
European public, neither the warmest welcome nor the most bleak
indifference could alter the conviction that among the composers who
have appeared during the last twenty-five years, M. Gounod was the
most promising one, as showing the greatest combination of sterling
science, beauty of idea, freshness of fancy, and individuality. Before
a note of 'Sappho' was written, certain sacred Roman Catholic
compositions and some exquisite settings of French verse had made it
clear to some of the acutest judges and profoundest musicians living,
that in him at last something true and new had come--may I not say,
the most poetical of French musicians that has till now written?" The
same genial and acute critic, in further discussing the envy,
jealousy, and prejudice that Gounod awakened in certain musical
quarters, writes in still more decided strains--"The fact has to be
swallowed and digested that already the composer of 'Sappho,' the
choruses to 'Ulysse,' 'Le Médecin malgré lui,' 'Faust,' 'Philemon et
Baucis,' a superb Cecilian mass, two excellent symphonies, and half a
hundred songs and romances, which may be ranged not far from
Schubert's and above any others existing in France, is one of the very
few individuals left to whom musical Europe is now looking for its
pleasure." Surely it is enough praise for a great musician that, in
the domain of opera, church music, symphony, and song, he has risen
above all others of his time in one direction, and in all been
surpassed by none.
It was not till "Faust" was produced that Gounod's genius evinced its
highest capacity. For nineteen years the exquisite melodies of this
great work have rung in the ears of civilisation without losing one
whit of the power with which they first fascinated the lovers of
music. The verdict which the aged Moscheles passed in his Leipsic
home--Moscheles, the friend of Beethoven, Weber, Schumann, and
Mendelssohn; which was re-echoed by the patriarchal Rossini, who came
from his Passy retirement to offer his congratulations; which Auber
took up again, as with tears of joy in his eyes he led Gounod, the
ex-pupil of the Conservatory, through the halls wherein had been laid
the foundation of his musical skill--that verdict has been affirmed
over and over again by the world. For in "Faust" we recognise not only
some of the most noble music ever written, but a highly dramatic
expression of spiritual truth. It is hardly a question that Gounod has
succeeded in an unrivalled degree in expressing the characters and
symbolisms of "Mephistopheles," "Faust," and "Gretchen" in music not
merely beautiful, but spiritual, humorous, subtile, and voluptuous,
accordingly as the varied meanings of Goethe's masterpiece demand.
Visitors at Paris, while the American civil war was at its height,
might frequently have observed at the beautiful Théâtre Lyrique,
afterwards burned by the Vandals of the Commune, a noticeable-looking
man, of blonde complexion and tawny beard, clear-cut features, and
large, bright, almost sombre-looking eyes. As the opera of "Faust"
progresses, his features eloquently express his varying emotions, now
of approval, now of annoyance at different parts of the performance.
M. Gounod is criticising the interpretation of the great opera, which
suddenly lifted him into fame as perhaps the most imaginative and
creative of late composers.
An aggressive disposition, an energy and faith that accepted no
rebuffs, and the power of "toiling terribly," had enabled Gounod to
battle his way into the front rank. Unlike Rossini and Auber, he
disdained social recreation, and was so rarely seen in the fashionable
quarters of Paris and London that only an occasional musical
announcement kept him before the eyes of the public. Gounod seems to
have devoted himself to the strict sphere of his art-life with an
exclusive devotion quite foreign to the general temperament of the
musician, into which something luxurious and pleasure-loving is so apt
to enter. This composer, standing in the very front rank of his
fellows, has injected into the veins of the French school to which he
belongs a seriousness, depth, and imaginative vigour, which prove to
us how much he is indebted to German inspiration and German models.
CHARLES GOUNOD, born in Paris, June 17, 1818, betrayed so much passion
for music during tender years, that his father gave him every
opportunity to gratify and improve this marked bias. He studied under
Reicha and Le Sueur, and finally under Halévy, completing under the
latter the preparation which fitted him for entrance into the
Conservatory. The talents he displayed there were such as to fix on
him the attention of his most distinguished masters. He carried off
the second prize at nineteen, and at twenty-one received the grand
prize for musical composition awarded by the French Institute. His
first published work was a mass performed at the Church of St.
Eustache, which, while not specially successful, was sufficiently
encouraging to both the young composer and his friends.
Gounod now proceeded to Rome, where there seems to have been some
inclination on his part to study for holy orders. But music was not
destined to be cheated of so gifted a votary. In 1841 he wrote a
second mass, which was so well thought of in the papal capital as to
gain for the young composer the appointment of an honorary
chapel-master for life. This recognition of his genius settled his
final conviction that music was his true life-work, though the
religious sentiment, or rather a sympathy with mysticism, is
strikingly apparent in all of his compositions. The next goal in the
composer's art pilgrimage was the music-loving city of Vienna, the
home of Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven, and Schubert, though its people
waited till the last three great geniuses were dead before it accorded
them the loving homage which they have since so freely rendered. The
reception given by the capricious Viennese to a requiem and a Lenten
mass (for as yet Gounod only thought of sacred music as his vocation)
was not such as to encourage a residence. Paris, the queen of the
world, towards which every French exile ever looks with longing eyes,
seemed to beckon him back; so at the age of twenty-five he turned his
steps again to his beloved Lutetia. His education was finished; he had
completed his "Wanderjahre;" and he was eager to enter on the serious
work of life.
He was appointed chapel-master at the Church of Foreign Missions, in
which office he remained for six years, in the meanwhile marrying a
charming woman, the daughter of Herr Zimmermann, the celebrated
theologian and orator. In 1849 he composed his third mass, which made
a powerful impression on musicians and critics, though Gounod's
ambition, which seems to have been powerfully stimulated by his
marriage, began to realise that it was in the field of lyric drama
only that his powers would find their full development. He had been an
ardent student in literature and art as well as in music; his style
had been formed on the most noble and serious German models, and his
tastes, awakened into full activity, carried him with great zeal into
the loftier field of operatic composition.
The dominating influence of Gluck, so potent in shaping the tastes and
methods of the more serious French composers, asserted itself from the
beginning in the work of Gounod, and no modern composer has been so
brilliant and effective a disciple in carrying out the formulas of
that great master. More free, flexible, and melodious than Spontini
and Halévy, measuring his work by a conception of art more lofty and
ideal than that of Meyerbeer, and in creative power and originality by
far their superior, Gounod's genius, as shown in the one opera of
"Faust," suffices to stamp his great mastership.
But he had many years of struggle yet before this end was to be
achieved. His early lyric compositions fell dead. Score after score
was rejected by the managers. No one cared to hazard the risk of
producing an opera by this unknown composer. His first essay was a
pastoral opera, "Philemon and Baucis," and it did not escape from the
manuscript for many a long year, though it has in more recent times
been received by critical German audiences with great applause. A
catalogue of Gounod's failures would have no significance except as
showing that his industry and energy were not relaxed by public
neglect. His first decided encouragement came in 1851, when "Sappho"
was produced at the French Opera through the influence of Madame
Pauline Viardot, the sister of Malibran, who had a generous belief in
the composer's future, and such a position in the musical world of
Paris as to make her requests almost mandatory. This opera, based on
the fine poem of Emile Augier, was well received, and cheered Gounod's
heart to make fresh efforts. In 1852 he composed the choruses for
Poussard's classical tragedy of "Ulysse," performed at the Théâtre
Français. The growing recognition of the world was evidenced in his
appointment as director of the Normal Singing School of Paris, the
primary school of the Conservatory. In 1854 a five-act opera, with a
libretto from the legend of the "Bleeding Nun," was completed and
produced, and Gounod was further gratified to see that musical
authorities were willing to grant him a distinct place in the ranks of
art, though as yet not a very high one.
For years Gounod's serious and elevated mind had been pondering on
Goethe's great poem as the subject of an opera, and there is reason to
conjecture that parts of it were composed and arranged, if not fully
elaborated, long prior to its final crystallisation. But he was not
yet quite ready to enter seriously on the composition of the
masterpiece. He must still try his hand on lesser themes. Occasional
pieces for the orchestra or choruses strengthened his hold on these
important elements of lyric composition, and in 1858 he produced "Le
Médecin malgré lui," based on Molière's comedy, afterwards performed
as an English opera under the title of "The Mock Doctor." Gounod's
genius seems to have had no affinity for the graceful and sparkling
measures of comic music, and his attempt to rival Rossini and Auber in
the field where they were pre-eminent was decidedly unsuccessful,
though the opera contained much fine music.