From a photograph made in April, 1891.
]
The following year Gounod presented himself again at the _Opéra_. For a
long time past he had felt the desire to attempt one of the Corneille’s
masterpieces, and he had formed the plan of setting “Polyeucte” to
music, and transforming it into a lyric drama. It was a subject half
religious, half profane, which seemed peculiarly suited to his
intellectual temperament. He charged his friend, Jules Barbier, with
fashioning a libretto from Corneille’s celebrated tragedy, which the
latter followed step by step, even preserving some of the great poet’s
verses, and he wrote the music of this new “Polyeucte,” which was
performed at the _Opéra_, Oct. 7, 1878. But it was said that the author
of “Faust” and “Roméo,” both so successful at the _Opéra_, after having
been born and bred elsewhere, could never succeed at that theatre with a
work written expressly for it. “Polyeucte,” indeed, was not well
received, and scarcely deserved to be, and its career ended with a
series of twenty-nine performances. The composer was not much more
fortunate with “Le Tribut de Zamora,” another work which he gave to the
_Opéra_, April 1, 1881. This work, however, had been staged with great
splendor and magnificence, the costumes and decorations were very rich
and elaborate, and what was still more important, the two principal
rôles were taken by artists of the first rank, M. Lassalle and Mme.
Gabrielle Krauss, the latter especially being very fine in the character
of Xaïma. But nothing could counteract the insipidity and insignificance
of the work, and notwithstanding the luxury brought to its support,
notwithstanding the incontestable talent of its interpreters, “Le Tribut
de Zamora” scarcely lived through fifty performances. This was the last
dramatic effort of Charles Gounod, who seems to-day to have finally
given up the theatre, and whose health has been steadily declining for a
number of years.
But Gounod has not confined himself exclusively to the theatre; his very
remarkable fertility has exercised itself in all directions,
particularly in the religious genre, so well suited to his nature.
Gounod’s religious compositions are very numerous, and since he has
renounced the stage he has achieved some striking successes in oratorio.
“La Redemption,” (1882) a sacred trilogy, of which he wrote the music
and the French words, and “Mors et Vita,” another sacred trilogy, the
Latin text of which he arranged himself from the Catholic liturgy and
the Vulgate, won for him triumphs which the great merit of these
beautiful compositions fully justified. Since his youth Gounod has
produced a great number of sacred works, several of which are of rare
beauty, such as the “Messe des Orphéonistes” (1853), the “Messe de
Sainte Cécile” (1855), a mass in C minor (1867), a mass of the Sacred
Heart (1876), a mass to the memory of Joan of Arc (1887), a mass for two
voices, a short mass in C major, three solemn masses, two Requiem
masses, a “Stabat Mater,” a “Te Deum,” a hymn to Saint Augustin, “Les
Sept Paroles du Christ,” “Jésus sur le lac de Tibériade,” a choral
psalmody, “Tobie,” a little oratorio, and a considerable number of
motets of different kinds.
In profane music, and aside from the theatre, Gounod has shown himself
scarcely less fertile. His two symphonies, (first in D, second in E
flat) and his “Temple de l’Harmonie,” cantata with choruses, are all
compositions of great merit. I would mention also “Biondina,” a pretty
little lyric poem, and especially would I call attention to his
beautiful male choruses, and to his songs of which he has written more
than a hundred, and among which are to be found veritable masterpieces
of poetry and sentiment, such as “Le Vallon,” “Le Soir,” “Medjé,”
“l’Envoi de Fleurs,” “Le Printemps,” “La Prière du Soir,” “Venise,” etc.
In this style of composition Gounod’s repertoire is varied, substantial
and charming, and few French writers have given us a note so personal
and original.
In attempting to characterize the genius of Gounod, and to determine the
place which he should occupy in the history of contemporaneous art, it
is necessary to consider principally “Faust” and “Roméo et Juliette.”
These are his two masterpieces, and it is through these works that the
composer has truly revealed his personality and his genius; it is
through these works that his name has become famous and will go down to
posterity. It is of these works, then, that we must demand the secret of
that powerful influence which Gounod has exerted for more than a quarter
of a century over the art, over artists and over the public.
[Illustration:
Fac-simile autograph manuscript from Gounod’s “Romeo and Juliet.”
]
Although not performed until a year after “Le Médécin Malgré Lui,”
“Faust” was written first. In this work the musician had been
intelligently served by his collaborators, who had taken from Goethe’s
masterpiece all that which pertained to the action and to the dramatic
passion, and left judiciously alone all the psychological, philosophical
and metaphysical dissertations. The libretto was admirably cut for the
stage, varied in tone and coloring, and contained a fair quota of that
fantastic element so effective on the stage and so well liked by the
public. And never was the musician better inspired. The Kermesse scene
is full of warmth and sunshine; the garden scene is one of an ethereal
and enchanting poetry, and the words of passion are by turns softly
languishing or full of an intense energy; the scene in the church, where
Mephistopheles, pursuing Marguerite even to the very shades of the
sanctuary, tries to arrest her prayer, and prevent the unfortunate
victim from taking refuge in the Divine mercy, is stamped with a rare
feeling of grandeur, and reveals a profoundly dramatic character.
Finally, the episode of the death of Valentine and his malediction of
Marguerite forms a pathetic and superb scene, which, with its numerous
and varied incidents is surely one of the best of this remarkable work.
It is a singular thing that the two musicians whose personal and
original genius characterize in some sort, from points of view otherwise
very different, the reform tendencies of the present French school,
should both fall upon these two great masterpieces, “Faust” and “Roméo
et Juliette,” each interpreting them after his own manner and according
to his own temperament. It was Berlioz who first conceived the idea of
appropriating them, and long before Gounod had dreamed of such a thing,
had given us “Roméo et Juliette” and his “Damnation de Faust.”
Comparison between the works of these two artists is impossible, because
of the dissimilarity of their natures and aspirations. In regard to
“Faust,” however, we may say that Berlioz, who did not make an opera of
it, but a grand musical legend, preserving thus one of the peculiar
characteristics of the original work, treated especially the energetic
and picturesque part of the drama, whereas Gounod chose rather to
reproduce the love poetry, the exalted reverie and that mystic and
supernatural perfume which characterizes Goethe’s poem. Although the
charming Kermesse scene in Gounod’s score, which is an episode apart
from the action, is very well executed, highly colored, of a really
exceptional musical interest, it cannot be denied that in picturesque
sentiment Berlioz has singularly surpassed his rival in the various and
typical episodes of his “Damnation de Faust,” the latin song of the
students, the soldier’s chorus, the Hungarian march, the ballet of the
sylphs, the military retreat, the chorus of the sylphs and gnomes, etc.
On the other hand, whatever is tender and emotional, dreamy and poetic,
has been admirably treated by Gounod, and it is by certain unobtrusive
fragments, certain almost hidden passages in his score that the hand of
a master, the inspiration of a poet is betrayed, that the man of genius
is revealed. Witness Marguerite’s response to Faust as he approaches her
at the entrance of the chapel:
“Non, monsieur, je ne suis demoiselle ni belle,
Et je n’ai pas besoin qu’on me donne la main.”
or Marguerite’s reflection in her garden,
“Je voudrais bien savoir quel était ce jeune homme,
Si c’est un grand seigneur et comment il se nomme.”
Not only are these two fragments perfect, finished, exquisite, from a
musical point of view, but they exhale besides I know not what
mysterious perfume. They give the hearer so complete a perception of the
sentiment which Marguerite is fated to prove for “Faust,” that they
have, aside from the scenic import, a kind of mystic and profound
meaning which seems impossible to translate into music, and which
strikes, nevertheless, the most indifferent ears. It is this peculiar,
we may say hitherto unknown sense, which gives Gounod’s “Faust” its true
color, its character at once tender and dreamy, mysterious and
fascinating, melancholy and passionate, and which assigns to it a place
apart, a unique place among the number of the most original works of
contemporary art. It is easy to see in this work that Gounod’s
intellectual tendencies, his youthful sympathies, his leanings toward a
religious and monastic life, have not been without influence on his
musical temperament, and on the very nature of his talent.
If “Faust” is an exquisite work, “Roméo et Juliette” is a superb one, of
a grand and spirited style, in which the external and material picture
of a chivalric world contrasts strikingly with the internal analysis of
a passionate love, constrained to conceal itself from all eyes, yet from
this very cause becoming all the more powerful. If one wished to enter
into what might be called a psychological analysis of the score, it
would be necessary to discover how great were the difficulties of the
composer in writing “Roméo” without repeating himself, after having
written “Faust.” For, although the subjects of the two works differ
widely, we see the same situations reproduced in each, under the same
scenic conditions, and the stumbling block was all the more troublesome
since these situations were the most salient ones, and constituted, as
it were, the very core of the dramatic action. Witness the balcony scene
of “Roméo” and the garden scene of “Faust” or the duel of Roméo and
Tybalt with the death of the latter, in the first, and the duel of Faust
and Valentine, also mortal, in the second. Truly a musician must have a
singular power, a very remarkable faculty of reiteration, to attempt
successfully such a repetition of similar episodes.
[Illustration: