Charles Gounod

“ It was the breath of his nostrils; his lectures proved it as well as his works—more so indeed, perhaps; for, as a man with a strong creed is generally a man full of great longings, the very fervour of those aspirations will often carry him far above the ordinary beaten track. From the heights thus gained he shed as much light on a musician's as on a painter's work, ushering us all into the presence of the universal sources of the highest truths. By showing me the real nature of true art, he taught me more about my own than any number of merely technical masters could have done. ”

“ Our celebrated composer's Mass has had a great success, both amongst ourselves and with the general public. It was well performed, thanks to the activity he displayed in shaking up all the old sleepy-heads! If you see Loubens, [10] pray give him my best regards. What have you done with Courtépée? Can you get him up in the mornings when you get up yourself, you early bird?
Farewell! If I can make myself either useful or agreeable to you, command me.—E. Hébert.
Murat absolutely refuses to write even two lines. He says he will write later on.
CHARLES GOUNOD.
That is a lie!—Murat. ”

“ Note.—Since these sketches were written, the death of Charles Gounod has deprived France of one of her greatest musicians. The composer of "Faust" died on the 18th of October (1893) , the anniversary of the first performance of his opera, "La Nonne Sanglante," which was produced in 1854. His loss is one that will be mourned, not by France alone, but by all other nations, and Englishmen will not forget that their country was the birthplace of the "Redemption" and "Mors et Vita."
A. H.
AMBROISE THOMAS IT has become a trite saying that music is the youngest of the arts. ”

“ It has been said and frequently repeated, parrot-wise, that Monsieur Ingres was intolerant and exclusive. That is utterly untrue. If he had a way of imposing his opinions, it was because of his intense belief—the surest means of influencing others. I never knew any one with such a power of universal admiration, simply because he knew better than most what to admire, and wherein beauty lay. But he was discreet. He knew full well how prone youthful enthusiasm is to fall down and worship unreasoningly before the personal peculiarities of an artist or composer. ”

“ Once these intellectual pioneers have dropped on the road they have hewed out—oh! then troops up the flock of imitators, full of the pride of breaking down the already opened door; every separate sheep of them, as vainglorious as the legendary fly on the coach-wheel, loudly claiming the honour and glory of having won triumph for the Revolution. "J'ai tant fait que nos gens sont enfin dans la plaine!" Like Beethoven, Berlioz was one of the illustrious sufferers from that painful privilege of being an exceptional man. ”

“ She knew too well all an artist's life entails, and probably she shrank from the thought that her son's might be no better than a second edition of the bitter struggle she had shared with my poor father.
In her despair she sought our Principal, Monsieur Poirson, and consulted him about her trouble. He cheered her up.
"Do not be the least uneasy," so he spoke to her; "your son shall not be a musician. He is a good little boy, and does his lessons well. The masters are all pleased with him. ”

“ But it was not alone her physical self that had grown old; her heart-beat, too, was andante. She consented to exchange letters; her pen could correspond with him, but not her passion. She wrote him: "You have a very young heart. I am quite old. Then, sir, I am six years your elder, and at my age I must know how to deny myself new friendships." So Berlioz went his way. His disapproval of Liszt and Wagner alienated the friendship of even the princess, and his stormy career ended at the age of sixty-six.
GOUNOD
Charles Gounod wrote as amorous music as ever troubled a human heart. ”

“ Berlioz bares his heart in them, as it were. He lets himself go; he enters into the most intimate details of his private and artistic life. In a word, he opens his whole heart to his friend, and that in terms of such effusive warmth and affection as prove how worthy each was of the other's friendship, and how complete the mutual understanding was. ”

“ His influence on French music was immense, though during the last years of the 19th century it was rather counterbalanced by that of Wagner. Whatever may be the verdict of posterity, it is unlikely that the quality of individuality will be denied to Gounod. To be the composer of Faust is alone a sufficient title to lasting fame. ”

“ What a wonderful conception is that double row of prophets and sibyls, those seers of either sex, whose gaze pierces the darkness of the future, and in whose persons the omniscient Spirit is carried through the ages! What a volume of teaching is that vaulted ceiling covered with the pictured story of our human origin, and whereon the colossal figure of the prophet Jonah, cast out of the belly of the whale, is linked with the triumph of that other Jonah, snatched by the power of His own might out of the darkness of the tomb, and victorious over death itself! ”

“ Such feelings were quite incompatible with the nobility of that great and generous and loyal nature. The trials endured by Berlioz when competing for the Grand Prix de Rome were the faithful image, and, as it were, the prophetic prelude to those he was to face all through his career. He actually competed four times over, and he was twenty-seven when, by dint of his own perseverance, and in spite of the innumerable difficulties he had to overcome, he won the prize, in the year 1830. ”

“ Let us rather do all we can to diffuse the light of truth. We never can have too much of it.
M. Saint-Saëns is one of the most astonishingly gifted men, as regards musical powers, I have ever met with. He is armed at all points. He knows his business thoroughly. I need only remark that he uses his orchestra, and plays with it, just as he plays on and with his piano.
He possesses the gift of description in the highest and rarest degree. He has an enormous power of assimilation. He can write you a work in any style you choose—Rossini's, Verdi's, Schumann's, Wagner's. ”

“ He does not set up to be a reformer of any sort. He writes as he feels and knows. Mozart was no reformer either, and, as far as I am aware, that fact has not prevented his reaching the highest pinnacle of his art.
Another virtue (and one I desire to emphasise in these days) , M. Saint-Saëns writes music that keeps time, without perpetually dragging out over those silly and detestable pauses which make any proper musical construction impossible, and which are a mere maudlin affectation. He is simply a thoroughbred musician, who draws and paints with all the freedom of a master-hand ”

“ I know, or rather when I was a child I used to know, Emile Augier; we trundled our hoops together in the Luxemburg. But since those days Augier has grown famous, and I have remained in my native obscurity. I hardly think my old playmate would care to join me in anything more risky than a hoop race!"
"Very well," said Madame Viardot, "go and see Augier, and tell him that if he will write the libretto I will sing the principal part in your opera." ”

“ He looks as if he had been sent into the world to play Princes of the Church—vide Brogni in "La Juive," and this Papal Legate in "Henri VIII.," whom he invests with most imposing dignity.
M. Dereims, as Don Gomez, was remarkable for elegance and charm.
The orchestra, under M. Altès, was admirable; as was also the chorus, carefully taught and led by M. Jules Cohen.
M. Vaucorbeil, too, deserves a place of honour. He believed in M. Saint-Saëns, and as soon as he became Director of the Opera, he expressed a desire to see his work on our chief lyric stage. ”

“ Desgoffe himself was a man in ten thousand; downright and honest, modest and unselfish, simple and pure-minded as a child, the kindest and most faithful soul on earth. It may easily be guessed that my mother was very glad to learn that I had such good people near me to show me true affection, and not only comfort my loneliness, but, if necessary, give me kind and devoted care.
We students always spent our Sunday evenings in the Director's drawing-room, to which we had the right of entrée on that day. Generally there was music. Monsieur Ingres had taken a fancy to me, and he was music mad. ”

“ He never suffers from that bugbear of the chicken-hearted, the dread of not making his effect. He never exaggerates; thus he is never far-fetched, nor violent, nor over-emphatic. He uses every combination and every resource without abuse, and without being enslaved by any one of them. ”

“ The curtain rises on a graceful song and dance, during which Norfolk and Surrey carry on an aside conversation very ingeniously interwoven with the dance-music. The next scene, between Anne and Don Gomez, has a charming air, sung with much expression by M. Dereims. A dialogue between the King and Don Gomez closes this first part.
The second shows us a huge apartment in the banished Queen Katherine's lodging at Kimbolton Castle. The touch of a master-hand is evident all through these closing scenes of M. Saint-Saëns' opera. They are instinct with incomparable power. ”

“ This is the end of the argument, and the basis of all life. I should go on twaddling for ever (and so would you) , but I must not forget mine is not the only letter this envelope is to hold.
So I will send my affectionate love to you and Berthe.—Your brother,
CH. GOUNOD.
BERLIOZ IN the ranks of human nature certain peculiarly sensitive beings are to be found, whom circumstances affect after a fashion utterly distinct, both in nature and degree, from the results they produce on other men. ”

“ Charles François Gounod
(1818-1893) THE composer of "Faust" was born in Paris, June 17, 1818. His father had, in 1783, won the second prix de Rome for painting at the École des Beaux Arts. In 1837, the son won the second prix de Rome for music, and two years later captured the grand prix de Rome, by twenty-five votes out of twenty-seven, at the Paris Conservatoire. His instructors there had been Reicha in harmony, Halévy in counterpoint and fugue, and Leseur in composition. ”

“ Shall we never hear his "Te Deum," in all its grandeur of conception? And will no director produce that charming opera, "Beatrix et Bénédict?" Such an attempt nowadays, when opinion has so veered round to Berlioz' side, would have every chance of success. Though no particular merit on the score of risk encountered could be claimed, it might be wise to seize the favourable opportunity. The following letters have a double charm. ”

“ Immediate success is often enough a mere question of fashion. It proves a work to be on a level with the age; it by no means argues any long survival. There is no great reason, then, for being proud of it.
Berlioz was a very single-minded man, ignorant of all arts of concession or compromise. ”

“ Does it mean that Nature should be the foundation and starting point in all art? In that sense all the Masters are agreed. But Art cannot stop there, and Raphael, whom I suppose I may take to have known Nature well, gives us the following definition, as admirable as it is perhaps over-spontaneous: "Art does not consist in representing things as Nature made them, but as she should have made them!" Sublime words, telling us clearly that Art is above all a preference, a true selection, and thus presupposing a training of the artist's understanding to a special standard of appreciation. ”

“ Thus, at the mere sight of even a second-rate work, so that it suffice to kindle that divine spark, the hall-mark of genius, in his soul, the truly great artist will suddenly grasp his idea, and fathom the very depths of his art in one swift piercing glance. ”

“ Auber was a gay trifler, scattering his bright effusions with absolute insouciance, teeming with melodious ideas, but lacking depth. Berlioz, a musical Titan, wrestled against fate with a superhuman energy, and, Jove-like, subjugated his hearers with his thunderbolts. ”

“ I would perch myself on some steep rock, and stay for hours gazing out on the horizon, rolling a big stone down the precipitous slope from time to time, to hear it bound and bound till it struck the sea below and raised a ruffle of foam. ”

“ It is this absence of visible effort, of worldly trick, and of conceited affectation which makes the greatest works so unapproachable. The intellect which conceives them, and the raptures they express, are alike indispensable to their production.
But what shall I say of the prodigious, the gigantic talent of Michael Angelo! The amount of genius he heaped up and lavished, both as a painter and a poet, on the walls of this unique building, is beyond anything man can measure. ”

“ Literature is not music.... No! in good truth. But it is Art, which is ancient and modern too. Art, universal and eternal. And in Art the artist (not the artisan) must find his food, his health, his power, his very life. After all, what is this so-called naturalism in Art? ”

“ Even the very character and colour of the music and painting in question seem to indicate a deliberate renunciation. The art of the two masters is a sort of sacrament, whose outward and visible sign is but a transparent veil stretched between man and the divine and living Truth. ”