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.
I.
In the long list of brilliant names which have illustrated the fine arts, there is none attached to a personality more interesting and impressive than that of Hector Berlioz. He stands solitary, a colossus in music, with but few admirers and fewer followers. Original, puissant in faculties, fiercely dogmatic and intolerant, bizarre, his influence has impressed itself profoundly on the musical world both for good and evil, but has failed to make disciples or to rear a school. Notwithstanding the defects and extravagances of Berlioz, it is safe to assert that no art or philosophy can boast of an example of more perfect devotion to an ideal. The startling originality of Berlioz as a musician rests on a mental and emotional organisation different from and in some respects superior to that of any other eminent master. He possessed an ardent temperament; a gorgeous imagination, that knew no rest in its working, and at times became heated to the verge of madness; a most subtile sense of hearing; an intellect of the keenest analytic turn; a most arrogant will, full of enterprise and daring, which clung to its purpose with unrelenting tenacity; and passions of such heat and fervour that they rarely failed when aroused to carry him beyond all bounds of reason. His genius was unique, his character cast in the mould of a Titan, his life a tragedy. Says Blaze de Bussy—“Art has its martyrs, its forerunners crying in the wilderness, and feeding on roots. It has also its spoiled children sated with bonbons and dainties.” Berlioz belongs to the former of these classes, and, if ever a prophet lifted up his voice with a vehement and incessant outcry, it was he.
Hector Berlioz was born on December 11, 1803, at Côte Saint André, a small town between Grenoble and Lyons. His father was an excellent physician of more than ordinary attainments, and he superintended his son’s studies with great zeal, in the hope that the lad would also become an ornament of the healing profession. But young Hector, though an excellent scholar in other branches, developed a special aptitude for music, and at twelve he could sing at sight, and play difficult concertos on the flute. The elder regarded music only as a graceful ornament to life, and in nowise encouraged his son in thinking of music as a profession. So it was not long before Hector found his attention directed to anatomy, physiology, osteology, etc. In his father’s library he had already read of Gluck, Haydn, Mozart, etc., and had found a manuscript score of an opera which he had committed to memory. His soul revolted more and more from the path cut out for him. “Become a physician!” he cried, “study anatomy; dissect; take part in horrible operations? No! no! That would be a total subversion of the natural course of my life.”
But parental resolution carried the day, and, after he had finished the preliminary course of study, he was ordered up to Paris to join the army of medical students. So at the age of nineteen we find him lodged in the Quartier Latin. His first introduction to medical studies had been unfortunate. On entering a dissecting-room he had been so convulsed with horror as to leap from the window, and rush to his lodgings in an agony of dread and disgust, whence he did not emerge for twenty-four hours. At last, however, by dint of habit he became somewhat used to the disagreeable facts of his new life, and, to use his own words, “bade fair to add one more to the army of bad physicians,” when he went to the opera one night and heard “Les Danaïdes,” Salieri’s opera, performed with all the splendid completeness of the Académie Royale. This awakened into fresh life an unquenchable thirst for music, and he neglected his medical studies for the library of the Conservatoire, where he learned by heart the scores of Gluck and Rameau. At last, on coming out one night from a performance of “Iphigénie,” he swore that henceforth music should have her divine rights of him, in spite of all and everything. Henceforth hospital, dissecting-room, and professor’s lectures knew him no more.