Charles Gounod

The Numbers
 1818-1893
 wrote over 130 mélodies
 30 of these were in Italian and English

Biographical Notes
 Born in Paris in 1818
 His parents were a painter and a pianist, but his mother pressured him to study law
 Gounod instead decided to pursue music at age 16

1839 won the Prix de Rome

1840-42 writes Le vallon
1843 meets Felix Mendelssohn; Fanny Mendelssohn made the meeting possible
1843-47 music director of Missions Étrangères church
1847 enrolled in the seminary at St. Sulpice
1848 abandoned his seminary education because he wanted to study opera
1849 meets mezzo-soprano Pauline Viardot
1850 Sapho premieres
1856 starts Faust
1859 publishes Faust
1862 La reine de Saba premieres and is not received well
1867 Roméo et Juliette premiered
1870 Franco-Prussian War starts; Gounod and his family move to England
1871 stops composing opera, writes Gallia
1871-75 experiences some personal drama with the Weldon family
1893 Gounod dies

About the Songs

 Influenced by Catholicism, Mendelssohn, and the German Romantics
 Gounod developed his sound early on, and he refined it as his career went on (much like
Poulenc)
 Brought chromaticism into his work from a young age
 Enjoyed modulating by thirds
 Avoided Wagnerian influences
 Speech-like text settings: preferred that to metrical accents
 Set poets like Hugo, Musset, Lamartine, Ronsard and other Renaissance French Poets,
and Gautier

Important Songs

1839: Où voulez-vous aller?- Gounod’s first song

1840-42: Le vallon- this song illustrates the transition from romance to mélodie
1842: Venisse- illustrates his early propensity for chromaticism
1872: Oh, happy home! Oh, blessed flower!- English art song, modulation by thirds
1872: Sera le jour- example of Gounod’s preference for speech patterns as opposed to metrical
accents

Bibliography

“Charles François Gounod.” Columbia Electronic Encyclopedia, 6th Edition, Jan. 2019, p. 1.

EBSCOhost, ezproxy.depaul.edu/login?url=https://search.ebscohost.com/login.

aspx?direct=true&db=a9h&AN=134516951&site=ehost-live&scope=site.

Huebner, Steven. “Gounod, Charles François”. Oxford Music Online,

https://doi.org.ezproxy.depaul.edu/10.1093/gmo/9781561592630.article.40694. Accessed

13 February 2019.

“The Amazing Non-Operatic Works of Charles Gounod.” Interlude, 22 June 2018,

http://www.interlude.hk/front/musical-ideas-sprang-mind-like-butterflies-charles-

gounod-1818-1893/.