Gounod's genius fills too large a space in contemporary music to be
passed over without a brief special study. In pursuit of this no
better method suggests itself than an examination of the opera of
"Faust," into which the composer poured the finest inspirations of his
life, even as Goethe embodied the sum and flower of his long career,
which had garnered so many experiences, in his poetic masterpiece.
The story of "Faust" has tempted many composers. Prince Radziwill
tried it, and then Spohr set a version of the theme at once coarse and
cruel, full of vulgar witchwork and love-making only fit for a
chambermaid. Since then Schumann, Liszt, Wagner, and Berlioz have
treated the story orchestrally with more or less success. Gounod's
treatment of the poem is by far the most intelligible, poetic, and
dramatic ever attempted, and there is no opera since the days of Gluck
with so little weak music, except Beethoven's "Fidelio."
In the introduction the restless gloom of the old philosopher and the
contrasted joys of youth engaged in rustic revelry outside are
expressed with graphic force; and the Kirmes music in the next act is
so quaint and original, as well as melodious, as to give the sense of
delightful comedy. When Marguerite enters on the scene, we have a
waltz and chorus of such beauty and piquancy as would have done honour
to Mozart. Indeed, in the dramatic use of dance music Gounod hardly
yields in skill and originality to Meyerbeer himself, though the
latter composer specially distinguished himself in this direction. The
third and fourth acts develop all the tenderness and passion of
Marguerite's character, all the tragedy of her doom.
After Faust's beautiful monologue in the garden come the song of the
"King of Thule" and Marguerite's delight at finding the jewels, which
conjoined express the artless vanity of the child in a manner alike
full of grace and pathos. The quartet that follows is one of great
beauty, the music of each character being thoroughly in keeping, while
the admirable science of the composer blends all into thorough
artistic unity. It is hardly too much to assert that the love scene
which closes this act has nothing to surpass it for fire, passion, and
tenderness, seizing the mind of the hearer with absorbing force by its
suggestion and imagery, while the almost cloying sweetness of the
melody is such as Rossini and Schubert only could equal. The full
confession of the enamoured pair contained in the brief _adagio_
throbs with such rapture as to find its most suggestive parallel in
the ardent words commencing
"Gallop apace, ye fiery-footed steeds,"
placed by Shakespeare in the mouth of the expectant Juliet.
Beauties succeed each other in swift and picturesque succession,
fitting the dramatic order with a nicety which forces the highest
praise of the critic. The march and the chorus marking the return of
Valentine's regiment beat with a fire and enthusiasm to which the
tramp of victorious squadrons might well keep step. The wicked music
of Mephistopheles in the sarcastic serenade, the powerful duel trio,
and Valentine's curse are of the highest order of expression; while
the church scene, where the fiend whispers his taunts in the ear of
the disgraced Marguerite, as the gloomy musical hymn and peals of the
organ menace her with an irreversible doom, is a weird and thrilling
picture of despair, agony, and devilish exultation.
Gounod has been blamed for violating the reverence due to sacred
things, employing portions of the church service in this scene,
instead of writing music for it. But this is the last resort of
critical hostility, seeking a peg on which to hang objection.
Meyerbeer's splendid introduction of Luther's great hymn, "Ein' feste
Burg," in "Les Huguenots," called forth a similar criticism from his
German assailants. Some of the most dramatic effects in music have
been created by this species of musical quotation, so rich in its
appeal to memory and association. Who that has once heard can forget
the thrilling power of "La Marseillaise" in Schumann's setting of
Heinrich Heine's poem of "The Two Grenadiers?" The two French
soldiers, weary and broken-hearted after the Russian campaign,
approach the German frontier. The veterans are moved to tears as they
think of their humiliated Emperor. Up speaks one suffering with a
deadly hurt to the other, "Friend, when I am dead, bury me in my
native France, with my cross of honour on my breast, and my musket in
my hand, and lay my good sword by my side." Until this time the melody
has been a slow and dirge-like stave in the minor key. The old soldier
declares his belief that he will rise again from the clods when he
hears the victorious tramp of his Emperor's squadrons passing over his
grave, and the minor breaks into a weird setting of the
"Marseillaise" in the major key. Suddenly it closes with a few solemn
chords, and, instead of the smoke of battle and the march of the
phantom host, the imagination sees the lonely plain with its green
mounds and mouldering crosses.
Readers will pardon this digression illustrating an artistic law, of
which Gounod has made such effective use in the church scene of his
"Faust" in heightening its tragic solemnity. The wild goblin symphony
in the fifth act has added some new effects to the gamut of deviltry
in music, and shows that Weber in the "Wolf's Glen" and Meyerbeer in
the "Cloisters of St. Rosalie" did not exhaust the somewhat limited
field. The whole of this part of the act, sadly mutilated and abridged
often in representation, is singularly picturesque and striking as a
musical conception, and is a fitting companion to the tragic prison
scene. The despair of the poor crazed Marguerite; her delirious joy in
recognising Faust; the temptation to fly; the final outburst of faith
and hope, as the sense of Divine pardon sinks into her soul--all these
are touched with the fire of genius, and the passion sweeps with an
unfaltering force to its climax. These references to the details of a
work so familiar as "Faust," conveying of course no fresh information
to the reader, have been made to illustrate the peculiarities of
Gounod's musical temperament, which sways in such fascinating contrast
between the voluptuous and the spiritual. But whether his accents
belong to the one or the other, they bespeak a mood flushed with
earnestness and fervour, and a mind which recoils from the frivolous,
however graceful it may be.
In the Franco-German school, of which Gounod is so high an exponent,
the orchestra is busy throughout developing the history of the
emotions, and in "Faust" especially it is as busy a factor in
expressing the passions of the characters as the vocal parts. Not even
in the "garden scene" does the singing reduce the instruments to a
secondary importance. The difference between Gounod and Wagner, who
professes to elaborate the importance of the orchestra in dramatic
music, is that the former has a skill in writing for the voice which
the other lacks. The one lifts the voice by the orchestration, the
other submerges it. Gounod's affluence of lovely melody can only be
compared with that of Mozart and Rossini, and his skill and ingenuity
in treating the orchestra have wrung reluctant praise from his
bitterest opponents.
The special power which makes Gounod unique in his art, aside from
those elements before alluded to as derived from temperament, is his
unerring sense of dramatic fitness, which weds such highly suggestive
music to each varying phase of character and action. To this perhaps
one exception may be made. While he possesses a certain airy
playfulness, he fails in rich broad humour utterly, and situations of
comedy are by no means so well handled as the more serious scenes. A
good illustration of this may be found in the "Le Médecin malgré lui,"
in the couplets given to the drunken "Sganarelle." They are beautiful
music, but utterly unflavoured with the _vis comica_.
Had Gounod written only "Faust," it should stamp him as one of the
most highly-gifted composers of his age. Noticeably in his other
works, pre-eminently in this, he has shown a melodic freshness and
fertility, a mastery of musical form, a power of orchestration, and a
dramatic energy, which are combined to the same degree in no one of
his rivals. Therefore it is just to place him in the first rank of
contemporary composers.
* * * * *
Note by the Editor.--Gounod is a strongly religious man, and more than
once has been on the point of entering the Church. It is, therefore,
not surprising that he should have in his later life turned his
attention to the finest form of sacred music, the oratorio. His first
and greatest work of this class is his "Redemption," produced at the
Birmingham Festival of 1882, and conducted by himself. It was well
received, and has met with success at all subsequent performances. It
is intended to illustrate "three great facts (to quote the composer's
words in his prefatory commentary) on which the existence of the
Christian Church depends.... The Passion and death of the Saviour,
His glorious life on earth from His resurrection to His Ascension, and
finally the spread of Christianity in the world through the mission of
the apostles. These three parts of the present trilogy are preceded by
a Prologue on the Creation and Fall of our first parents, and the
promise of the Redeemer." In this work Gounod has discarded the
polyphonic method of the previous school of Italian and German sacred
music, and adopted the dramatic treatment. A competent critic has
written of this work in the following words:--"The 'Redemption' may be
classed among its author's noblest productions. It is a work of high
aim, written regardless of immediate popularity, and therefore all the
more likely to take rank among the permanent additions which sacred
music owes to modern music." In 1885 the oratorio of "Mors et Vita"
was produced at the Birmingham Festival, conducted by Herr Richter.
Though well received, it did not make as great an impression as its
predecessor, to which it stands in the light of a sequel. It consists
of four parts--a short Prologue, a Requiem Mass, the Last Judgment,
and Judex (or the Celestial City). In the Prologue a special
_leitmotive_ accompanying the words "Horrendum est in incidere in
Manus Dei" signifies the Death, not only of the body, but of the
unredeemed soul. A gleam of hope, however, pierces the darkness, and a
beautiful theme is heard frequently throughout the work expressive of
"the idea of justice tempered with mercy, and finally the happiness of
the blessed. The two opposing forces of the design, _Mors_ and _Vita_,
are thus well defined." The work, however, is unequal; the Requiem
Mass, in particular, does not rise in importance when compared with
the many fine examples of the Italian and German sacred music which
preceded it. "Compared with that truly inspired work, 'Redemption,'
partly written, it should be remembered, more than ten years
previously, Gounod's new effort shows a distinct decline, especially
as regards unity of style and genuine inspiration."
_BERLIOZ._