Charles Gounod

Charles Gounod is a Compositeur French born with Paris the June 17th 1818 and died with Saint-Cloud the October 18th 1893.

Biography

Charles-François Gounod is the son of a painter of talent, François-Louis Gounod, and of a distinguished woman who was its first piano teacher. After having made its classes with the College Saint-Louis, he studied the harmony with Antoine Reicha then, with the Conservatoire of Paris, with Jacques Fromental Halévy and the composition with Jean-François Lesueur. In 1839, it gained Large the Prix of Rome for its cantata Fernand . It benefitted from its stay to the Villa Médicis to study the sacred music in particular, especially that of Palestrina.

In 1859, was played Opera house its Faust , opera according to the drama of Goethe, in which Marguerite is allured by Faust after it sold its heart with the Diable. Thanks to a superb partition, including celebrates it air of Méphisto the Golden calf , the air of Marguerite known as of the jewels - Ah! I laugh -, immortalized with its way by Castafiore of Hergé, the chorus of the soldiers and the ballet music of the Nuit of Walpurgis , success was considerable: 70 representations the first year. In 1867, it published Romeo and Juliette , opera according to Shakespeare, whose most known airs are the charming waltz of Juliette, I want to live , and the air of the tenor Ah! rise, sun! .

If Gounod remains especially famous for its operas, it also composed two Symphonie S and a Petite symphony for ten wind instruments (of 1885) - sacred music - of which its very famous Ave Maria , not intended to be interpreted in a church and derived from the first prelude of the quite moderate Clavier of Bach -, many melodies on poems of Alfred de Musset or Victor Hugo, such Venice , O my beautiful rebel , Of a heart which likes .

Principal works

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