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 civilization 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
reechoed 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 recognize 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 unrivaled 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 Theatre Lyrique, afterward
burned by the Vandals of the Commune, a noticeable-looking man, of
blonde complexion and tawny beard, clear-cut features, and large,
bright, almost somber-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 vigor, 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, toward 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 chapelmaster at the Church of Foreign Missions, in
which office he remained for six years, in the mean while 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 realize 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 Theatre 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 crystallization. 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 produce "Le Médecin malgré lui,"
based on Molière's comedy, afterward 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
preeminent was decidedly unsuccessful, though the opera contained much
fine music.