Composer Guides, Charles-François Gounod

17th June marks the birthday of the great French composer Charles-François Gounod, born in 1818 in Paris. Brought up by a painter and a pianist, it seemed inevitable that the arts would feature heavily in the young Charles's future, and indeed he inherited some of the talents of both his parents. He may be known today for his compositions, but his aptitude for painting was also considerable.

Early experiences at the Théâtre-Italien stoked the fires of Gounod's interest in music as a career, and after a few years of private study under Anton Reicha he entered the Paris Conservatoire. There his teachers included some of the greatest names of the age - Halévy and Paer in particular - yet it was his meeting with his near-contemporary Berlioz that most inspired him. 

For so many composers and artists of the French Romantic period, true success was locked away behind the Prix de Rome. Gounod's father had won a second prize in the Prix for his paintings, but the son eventually eclipsed him, with the cantata Fernand bringing him the top honours. Success in this tightly-fought competition did not come easily - Gounod had taken three attempts before earning his triumph.

The subsidised travelling and studying that came with the Prix de Rome brought him into contact with the singer Pauline Viardot and the composer-pianist Fanny Hensel, as well as the literature of Goethe, whose Faust was to be the basis of perhaps Gounod's most lastingly successful work. 

Gounod was a deeply religious man for much of his life, and his travels likewise nourished this aspect of his development - particularly a stay in Rome, where he became acquainted with the polyphony of Palestrina. Sacred works, large and small, were a regular feature of his compositional output.

Through his friendship with Viardot (rumours abounded, and continue to do so, that the two were romantically involved) Gounod began to move towards composing operas. Early attempts such as Sapho and La Nonne sanglante had mixed success, and clique-based musical politics was as much a factor in their lukewarm reception as anything to do with their musical merit. A collaboration with librettists Jules Barbier and Michel Carré brought more success - first with the opéra comique Le Médecin malgré lui and then, a few years later, with Faust. We might expect the latter to have been a smash-hit, but in fact it took some time to work its way into the public's heart. However, once it had become established in the repertoire it became a firm favourite, and remains a staple to this day.

Other operas followed - some more successful than others (including an attempt to jump on the satirical-comedy bandwagon established by Offenbach's Orphée aux enfers), but the 1860s closed with the hugely popular Roméo et Juliette.

At this point factors beyond Gounod's control intervened to radically redirect the course of his life - the Prussian invasion of France prompted him to flee to London (and indeed his former home on the outskirts of Paris was destroyed by the Prussian advance). There he supported himself by composing religious and devotional solo vocal music, in collaboration with the singer Georgina Weldon - about whom, again, rumours swirled without much conclusive evidence.

After Gounod returned to France he found that his place at the head of the musical community was gradually being eclipsed; the younger generation (chiefly Bizet, Chabrier, Fauré, Massenet and of course Saint-Saëns) were fast making a name for themselves. Gounod does not seem to have been particularly concerned by this, and supported his younger colleagues' efforts. His own compositions continued to pour forth, with historically-themed operas and several large-scale choral works. The tradition of massed choral singing in England was at its height during this period, and works such as La Rédemption and Mors et vita, though rarely heard or even recorded today, were hugely popular among choral societies.

Gounod died in 1893, aged 75. Following his death his music began to fall out of fashion - often described a little dismissively as 'charming' and seen as overly sentimental. Those were arguably precisely the qualities that had made him so acclaimed throughout his career - but they now became concepts that could be used against him as tastes evolved, and in particular as European culture fell into a period of existential soul-searching after the First World War. Nevertheless, his success in his own time and his impact on the later generation of French composers would be difficult to overstate.