GOUNOD, goo'nb', CHARLES FRANcOIS (1818 93) . A distinguished French composer of sacred and dramatic music. He was born in Paris June 17, 1818, the son of an eminent painter and en graver, who died in 1823, leaving his widow and family in comparative poverty. In his auto biographical Memoirs, published in 1895, Gounod ascribes all his artistic success to the training and influence of his mother, who was a woman of remarkable character, as well as an accomplished musician, and who more than any one else laid the foundation of his future greatness as a com poser. At eighteen he entered the Paris Con servatory, after a probationary period in the Lycee Saint Louis. At the Conservatory his mas ters were Reicha, Halevy, Lesueur, and Pan., and at the end of his first year he won the second Prix de Rome with the cantata Marie Stuart et Rizzio. In 1839 he won the Grand Prix de Rome, obtaining twenty-five votes out of twenty seven. Always of a devout disposition, his stay in Rome and his studies in ecclesiastical music, par ticularly that of Palestrina, served to emphasize the religious tendency of his nature, and there is little doubt that on his return to Paris he would have entered the Church had not his affection for his mother been in the way. His first appointment was as organist and precentor of the Missions Etrangeres, Paris, where for five years little was heard of him until he was dis covered through the public presentation of one of his compositions. In 1849 Mme. Viardot, then at the zenith of her fame, asked Gounod, who was visiting her, why he did not write an opera, and upon his reply that he would do so gladly if he had a libretto, bade him go and see the celebrated Augier and say that if he would write the book she herself would sing the principal part. Augier, delighted with the proposition, immediately com menced work, and Sappho was the result (1851). Although not a success, the work earned for its composer a solid reputation. Ulysse followed in 1852, shortly after his marriage to a daughter of Zimmerman, a professor at the Conservatory. He became superintendent of instruction in singing to the communal schools of Paris, and also direc tor of the choral society connected with them, succeeding Hubert, the original founder of the society. The experience gained in this employ ment was of inestimable value to him, in that he learned to direct and utilize large masses of vocal sound so as to develop the mechanism of sonority, under very simple methods of treat ment. La nonne sanglante, an opera in five acts,
written in 1852, presented in 1854, and performed only eight times, was his next work, its fail ure proving a great disappointment to him. Saint Cecilia's mass, performed for the first time in 1855, by the Association of Artist Musicians, filled in the interval between La nonne sanglante and Faust, and of all his masses this has been the most popular. In 1856 he made the acquaint ance of Barbier and Carre, who agreed to supply the libretto of Faust ; hut by the time it was half finished a difficulty arose which precluded an immediate presentation, and Carvalho, who was to stage the new opera, asked that instead Gounod would write a comic opera, taking the subject from Moliere. Le medecin tnalgre lei was accordingly written, its success being imme diate and complete. A melodrama, Faust, had meanwhile been given at a rival theatre, with hut little success, and the collaborators returned to their work on their own half-finished opera of Faust, which was produced on March 19th. It did not meet with immediate approval, hnt has subsequently come to be regarded as the composer's operatic masterpiece, stamping him as one of the world's greatest musicians. Rom& et Juliette (1867) is, however, regarded by French critical opinion as of greater musical value than Faust. Smaller and less successful compositions were the following: Philemon et Baucis (1860) ; La Colombe (1866) ; La reins de* Saba (1862) ; Mireille (1864). His sojourn in England during the Franco-Prussian War was as profitable to him as it was beneficial to the cause of music in England. He formed the Gounod Choir, a choral society of mixed voices, which gave very successful concerts. To this period belong Gallia, a small cantata of endur ing merit, and the entr'acte music to several stage productions. His great oratorios, The Re demption, and Mors et Vita, are standard. Gou nod's music is marked by intense spirituality and power, and while his vocal and choral work alone would rank him with the highest, his genius is more clearly shown in his orchestration. He died in Paris April 17, 1893. There are many good biographies of Gounod, apart from his own memoirs, the most comprehensive of which is Claretie, Portraits contemporains (Paris, 1875). Consult also Voss, Ein Lebensbild (Leipzig, 1895).