Famous composers and their works, Vol. 3

by Unknown

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.

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.”