Opera Books

French Music in
the XIXth Century

By

Arthur Hervey

CHAPTER VI

GOUNOD AND HIS INFLUENCE

AMONG all the composers of the XIXth century, probably not one has appea1ed so much to the heart of woman as Gounod. The tone poet par excellence of the tender passion, Gounod created a musical language of his own, one of extraordinary sweetness, of wondrous fascination, the soft eloquence of which seemed to penetrate into the innermost recesses of the heart.) No asperities of style, no startling outbursts of ill-repressed passion were there to mar the exquisite suavity of melodies floating in a troublous atmosphere of intoxicating harmonies.
     The love expressed in Gounod’s music is not that which conquers through sheer force, or the expression of a violent masculine spirit. It in-sinuates itself softly, and gradually asserts its sway without needing to have recourse to the tearing of a passion into tatters.
     Certainly, it is often averred that in singing of love Gounod did not vary his accents to a very appreciable extent, that the different lovers whose stories he illustrated expressed themselves in very much the same sort of musical language. There is possibly a certain amount of truth in this, but at any rate it must be admitted that Gounod throughout his career remained essentially himself, that he never consciously imitated any other composer, that in all he wrote could be detected the unmistakable mark of his own individuality.
     There were two sides to his genius, the religious and the secular. At the outset of his career he had seriously thought of becoming a priest, and throughout his life he retained a firm belief in the mysteries of the Christian Faith. The sensuous side of religion seemed most to appeal to him. He had about him nothing of the ascetic. A religion of love, of mystic splendours, was more in accord with his ideas, and in all his works, whether sacred or secular, can be detected an amorous note—the keynote of his nature.
     Very much the same remark might be applied to Massenet, who in many respects seems to proceed artistically from Gounod.
     Music is probably the most disheartening of all the arts, and this owing partly to its evanescence. The master-work of a great painter appeals with equal force to other generations as well as to that which witnessed its birth, its worth is immediately recognised, and any discussion concerning its technical achievement is generally confined to the gens du métier, the public only following its own instinct and not taking the slightest interest in knowing whether the combination of certain shades employed to produce a particular effect of colouring be legitimate or not. In music the case is very different. A composer who has something new to say finds at first that he is misunderstood. He has to work hard before he is able to vanquish the indifference of the public. Perhaps he may then produce his masterpiece and awake to find himself famous. Alas! to how many composers has this been denied? Having reached the top of the ladder, he experiences great difficulty in remaining there. Everything he writes is compared, and generally unfavourably, with the work which has brought him renown. Still, he is able to live for some time on his reputation and to taste the sweets of success.
     He is now universally recognised as a master, but his work which has become popular is spoken of by some with that familiarity which often is the precursor of contemnpt; he is no longer so young, he has given forth that which was best within him and he shows a tendency to repeat himself. In the meanwhile a new generation has sprung up, fresh ideas have been put into circulation, the composer’s mannerisms have been imitated ad nauseam by those who, having no originality of their own, trade upon that of others. The master perhaps lags behind, and is not able to keep pace with the times, either through disinclination or incapacity to employ new methods. Thus, in his old age he becomes more and more reactionary in his ideas, and forgetting the difficulties that beset him at the outset of his own career, the incomprehension he once had to combat, is inclined to dogmatise and to disapprove of the efforts of the younger men to strike out new paths. Every year his works appear older. They may still arouse enthusiasm, but the form in which they are cast is, in obedience to the inexorable laws of evolution, gradually becoming modified.
     We have seen how this has happened in the case of the dramatic composers mentioned in the previous chapters, for, be it said, the above remarks apply mainly to musicians who write for the stage—how Spontini, Cherubini, Méhul, Rossini, Meyerbeer, Auber, have, after reaching the apex of glory, gradually descended from this lustrous position. What they have lost is not general esteem, but popularity, and this is not owing to want of genius, but to the relentless progress of time. By popularity I mean of course popularity equal to that which the above-named masters enjoyed during their lifetime.
     In one sense this is very sad ; on the other hand, it is also decidedly stimulating, for it shows that music is a living art, ever on the move, absolutely unfettered, possessing limitless powers of expansion. A masterpiece remains a masterpiece, even if its form has become obsolete and the public has forsaken it.
     Had music been incapable of progress or development it would not exist as an art. What is strange is the rapidity with which old forms give place to new, or rather are transformed into new Gounod’s operas have not yet lost their hold over the public. Two of them, at any rate, Faust and Romeo and Juliet, remain popular, more especially the first, which occupies a unique place in the operatic répertoire. There is no denying, however, that Gounod’s influence, once so powerful, has for some time been on the wane. Wagner’s theories, so long combated, have at last taken root, and the tardy triumph of the German master in Paris has produced far-reaching results. Very much the same revulsion of feeling has occurred in France with regard to Gounod as in England respecting Mendelssohn.
     The cases are, indeed, not unlike. The influence exercised by each master has been so great at it has permeated an entire generation, and the satiety engendered by the constant reproduction of special mannerisms on the part of imitators has reacted upon the original creators. Just as in England musicians are apt on occasions to allude disdainfully to Mendelssohn, so in France some of the younger men are inclined to adopt a contemptuous attitude towards Gounod.contempuous attitude towards Gounod.
     In the meanwhile, the English people remains staunch in its admiration of Eljjah, while Faust is still in the répertoire of every opera-house.
     Faust indeed is generally accepted as the composer’s representative work, and the one which contains the essence of his genius. This may be so, but if in his operatic version of Goethe’s masterpiece Gounod appears at his best, he has also written many other works of different kinds which in their way are equally original. The bulk of Gounod’s work is indeed insufficiently known, and many people would doubtless be surprised at the vast amount of music the French composer found time to write.
     I have already alluded to the dominant note of love which resounds throughout his works, also to the strong religious bias of his niind, which imparts a peculiar mysticism to so much of his music.
     The sentiment of nature was also one of his strong characteristics. Instances of this can be found in Sapho, his first opera, in the choruses he wrote for Ponsard’s tragedy Ulysse, in Faust (think of the Reapers’ chorus in the first act), in Mireille, where his music produces the effect of a warm sunny day. Many other instances might be adduced.
     When Gounod first settled in Paris, after a sojourn in Rome and in Vienna, he had to fight with the difficulties that beset all musicians at the commencement of their career. It was at this epoch that he wrote some of his most beautiful songs, such as "Le Vallon" and "Le Soir."
    Thanks to the recommendation of a great artist, Mine. Viardot, he succeeded in obtaining a hearing at the Grand Opéra, where his Sapho was produced in 1851.
     Although this work has not maintained its place in the répertoire, yet it marks a date in the history of French music, not only because it served to introduce Gounod to the operatic public, but because it contained certain modifications of the then prevailing dramatic style.
     We have seen how the system of Gluck aimed at securing an alliance as perfect as possible between words and music, also how this system had been corrupted by the adoption of the loose Italian methods of the early Rossinian epoch, when everything was sacrificed at the altar of vocal art, and common sense went to the wall.
     In Sapho Gounod made an attempt to return to saner ways and to restore unto the opera its ancient simple dignity.
     The following extract from an article on Sapho, written by Adoiphe Adam, explains very clearly the different ideas concerning operatic construction existing at the time:
     "We consider nowadays," he wrote, "as a quality that which the masters formerly looked upon as a fault. Music for them consisted in the choruses, the airs, in everything which prepared a dramatic situation. But as soon as the situation arrived, the music ceased in order to give way to vocal declamation. To-day we do precisely the contrary. When a dramatic situation arrives, we begin our set musical piece. It is rather the first of these systems which M. Gounod has followed."
     In other words, the system then in vogue, the one followed by Adolphe Adam in his operas, prescribed that when the dramatic situation was becoming particularly thrilling, then was the time for the vocalists to turn the theatre into a concert-room and sing a set piece, although by so doing all continuity of action was destroyed.
     There was nothing violently revolutionary in Sapho. In its style the music is refined, and contained indications of the individuality which soon was to manifest itself. It differed, however, from any of the popular operas of the period, and by its affinity with works of a distant past it seemed to point the way to the future. The date of the production of Sapho is an important one in the annals of music. Whilst the French composer was making his operatic début with a work in which he in some ways departed from the ordinary conventions of the period, Verdi with his Rigoletto was introducing a more dramatic style into Italy, and Wagner, although an exile from his own country, was closing his early period and foreshadowing the next by the production of Lohengrin at Weimar. New ideas were in the air, and the wave of emancipation which periodically appears, no one knows why, was at hand.
     With his next dramatic work, La Nonne Sanglante, Gounod did not make a step in advance; and Le Médecin malgré lui, a delightful opéra comique full of delicate touches, was appreciated by musicians but failed to captivate the public.
     His next work was Faust, and although this was not successful at the outset, yet its many beauties gradually conquered the apathy of the public, and soon the name of Gounod became famous all the world over.
     The master had now reached his goal. The only thing remaining for him to do was to be careful not to go too far below the standard of his own work, which certainly was not so very easy a task to accomplish. I am not, of course, attempting in these pages to write a biography of Gounod, but the position occupied in the history of French music by the composer of Faust is so important that it is necessary to take his operas chronologically in order to be able to express an opinion upon his music as a whole.
     Faust had been produced in 1859. During the following ten years Gounod, if he did not greatly improve his position, at any rate maintained it with Philémon et Baucis (1860), La Reine de Saba (1862), Mireille (1864), and Roméo et Juliette (1867).
     His subsequent operas, Cinq-Mars (1877), Polyeucte (1878), and Le Tri but de Zamora (1881), on the other hand, showed a marked falling off. Gounod seemingly did not realise that the movement he had helped to start had sensibly progressed, that what was new twenty-five years before was now old and hackneyed, that it was worse than useless to try to galvanise obsolete forms into life, forms that had been called into existence through erroneous conceptions of operatic art. Unlike Verdi, who in his old age resolutely turned his back on the past and wrote Otello and Falstaff Gounod attempted the impossible by endeavouring to stem the current of the times, and deliberately courted failure while seeking success. Le Tribut de Zamora was planned upon so old-fashioned a model and contained so little that the composer had not said, and better said, before, that it failed completely.
     It was Gounod’s last composition for s the stage. The remainder of his life was devoted to sacred music, two of his most important works, The Redemption and Mors et Vita, being written for England.
     By the above summary it will be seen that the years intervening between 1850 and 1870 constitute the most fruitful period of Gounod’s productivity. During the first of these decades he displayed the freshness of his early inspiration in Sapho, Ulysse, the Messe de Ste Cécile, Le Médecin malgré lui, his genius finding its highest expression in Faust.
     The compositions of the second decade include at least two works which are eminently characteristic of their author—Mireille and Roméo et Juliette.
     During the last years of his life Gounod cannot be said to have greatly improved his reputation, notwithstanding the undoubted merit of The Redemption and Mors et Vita, and the charm of many of his minor vocal compositions.
    It is doubtful whether people altogether realise the important part played by Gounod in the musical movement of the century.
    Of late years it has been so much the fashion to look upon him as representing a reactionary element in music, that an altogether false idea of his position has been engendered.
    There was nothing revolutionary in Gounod’s methods. His nature was far too deeply imbued with reverence. To restore rather than to destroy was his aim. Sensitive and impressionable to an abnormal extent, he instinctively shrank from employing violent means in the expression of his ideas. The study of Palestrina and other ancient Italians he had assiduously pursued in Rome, combined with the admiration he experienced for Bach, Beethoven, and Mendelssohn, had reacted on his nature and helped to form his style.
     Individuality is the privilege of genius. The same theme may be treated by several masters and in each case it will present a different appearance. Who would accuse Wagner of plagiarism because a theme in the Walküre bears a strong resemblance to one in Mendelssohn’s Scottish Symphony? Or Mendelssohn for having unconsciously in his Midsummer Night’s Dream overture reminded one of Weber’s Oberon? Gounod’s works are not free from similar reminiscences. For instance, in Faust there are passages that recall Beethoven, Mendelssohn and Meyerbeer. But what does this matter? The few passing suggestions that occur do not in any way detract from the extraordinary individuality which permeates the opera from the first bar to the last.
     Whatever may be said against Gounod’s music, it is impossible to deny its originality. The composer of Faust spoke a new language to his countrymen, one of alluring softness and penetrating charm. He did not tickle their ears with trivial tunes like those of Auber and Adam, or startle their senses with violent outbursts like Berlioz startled them, but he found the way to their hearts by sincerely expressing his own fedings.
     It would be easy enough to pick holes in his works, to point to instances where he manifestly made concessions to vocalists by introducing airs of a florid description, to find flaws in his style, to lay stress upon its want of virility, its cloying sweetness, the repetition of fatiguing mannerisms. But what would be the use of this? Is it not better to dwell upon the master’s qualities than to magnify his defects?
     Gounod’s music is impregnated with sensuousness, and he may be said at once to have etherealised and materialised the tender passion. What indeed can be more poetical and at the same time more suggestive than the garden scene in Faust? I know that some will at once reply the second act of Tristan und Isolde.
     Far be it from me to attempt to institute any comparison between two love scenes so different in character and so admirable in their respective ways.
     The words I have used with regard to Gounod could be equally emnployed in connection with Wagner’s peerless love scene. There is, however, this difference, that Gounod’s music being easier of comprehension necessarily has appea1ed to a larger circle. Any one who is fairly musical and possesses an emotional nature cannot fail to be thrilled by the soul-stirring melodies with which Gounod sings of the tender passion. The Faust garden scene has possibly been responsible for a large number of lapses from the path of virtue. In the second act of Roméo the love is more idealised. Nothing can be suaver or more refined. In Mireille, again, Gounod becomes rather idyllic.
     But in how many detached songs has he not celebrated the power of love and spoken to the heart in irresistible tones? "Medjé," "Le Printemps," "Ce que je suis sans toi," "Maid of Athens," "0, that we two were maying ! ", and many other gems of the first water, if not the most ambitious of his works, are not by any means the least remarkable.
     Even in Gounod’s most unsuccessful operas may be found melodies of rare beauty.
     Those who are insensible to their charm are much to be pitied. In the realm of music there are many mansions, and the smallest of these are often the pleasantest to inhabit on occasions.
     "When, owing to the fatal march of time, in a distant future, the operas of Gounod will have entered for ever the dusty sanctuary of libraries, known only to students, the Messe de Ste Cécile, Rédemption and Mors et Vita will remain alive, and will teach future generations what a great musician France could boast of in the XIXth century." Thus writes Saint-Saëns, than whom no one is better entitled to utter an opinion.
     It is generally unsafe to prophesy, although it is perhaps as likely as not that the French master’s words may turn out to be true. Certainly Gounod has imprinted his individuality as much upon his religious as upon his secular writings. The Redemption is a work quite sui generis. It differs entirely from the older oratorios in its style. A curious compound of mysticism allied to realism, in which a noble simplicity predominates, but occasionally gives way to sentiment of a theatrical kind, often touching in its accents, rarely powerful—in short, a work which exemplifies the composer’s qualities as well as his defects, and the greatest fault of which is a certain purposely-employed monotony of colour which engenders fatigue.
     In England The Redemption has, as every one knows, met with an immense success, and, since its production at Birmingham in 1882, has been repeatedly heard in London and at our great provincial Festivals. Mors et Vita, although containing much that is worthy of attention, has not been so fortunate in obtaining public recognition.
     Let us, however, return to Faust, which is, after all, the most typical example of the composer’s genius, and see in what way it differs from the operas then in vogue. Let it be remembered that in 1859 Wagner ·was known in France only by name, and that the most extravagant ideas were current respecting what was satirically termed the "music of the future," that there were as yet no popular concerts of instrumental music in Paris, and that the public had not had the opportunity of becoming familiarised with the symphonic works of the great masters, that Meyerbeer still reigned supreme at the Grand Opéra, and that the cult of Italian music still prevailed.
     The production of Faust may well be taken as heralding the dawn of a new era.
     Many self-constituted aristarchs of taste are prone to grumble at what they consider a desecration of Goethe’s tragedy. At any rate, the countrymen of Goethe have shown in a practical way the admiration they feel for the French composer’s opera.
     The fact is that people are often apt to judge a work from a wrong point of view. They seek to find in it that which the author never intended should be there. The Faust legend had already inspired several other composers, notably Schumann, Wagner, Liszt, Berlioz. Gounod and his librettists, Michel Carré and Jules Barbier, saw in it the material for a good opera, nothing more, nothing less. And what a subj cot they chose ! One full of human interest, to which the supernatural element serves to impart a touch of colour. The immense popularity which has accrued to Faust has in some respects done it harm, for it has vulgarised it, and has caused it to run the risk of declining to the level of a typical prima donna opera of the old school. This, of course, is not the fault of the work, but of the way in which it is often interpreted.
     For instance, what can he more ridiculous than the manner in which the meeting between Faust and Marguerile in the second act is usually performed? The market-place is crowded, and Marguerite is quietly passing through it on her way home. Faust comes forward and offers to accompany her. She modestly declines his arm. and passes on. It is a mere episode, and ordinary common sense would lead one to conclude that it would create no sensation whatever in a crowd, but would be absolutely unnoticed.
     And how, after all that has been said concerning stage realism, is this scene enacted at the commencement of the twentieth century? The moment that Marguerite appears, the crowd forms a semi-circle, and listens mute and attentive to the conversation between the two, only showing signs of life when the young girl has crossed the stage; all this in order to pander to the vanity of a prima donna and draw attention to her entrance.
     Gounod would appear to have written Faust with a considerable amount of freedom, that is, without troubling himself much about following precedents.
      The opening bars of the prelude, appropriately vague, strike a new note. They seem to convey a sense of longing, of yearning for some unattainable object. Then, mysteriously, a serpentine theme rises from out of the depths and seems to be searching for something round which to wind its chromatic coils. Suddenly its course is arrested, a curtain of clouds is apparently drawn back, the harps slowly and softly playing a scale passage, and one of Gounod’s most entrancing melodies is disclosed, rising pure and serene to the loftier. regions.
     How many people who go to hear Faust, possibly many of them attracted by the desire of hearing some famous "diva" sing the jewel song, listen attentively to this beautiful prelude, or pay much attention to the first scene, or, indeed, the entire first act, of the opera? Yet it is here and also in other less appreciated pages that Gounod has shown the most genius. It is here that he has left the beaten operatic track and struck out new paths.
     The detachable songs that abound in Faust are. admirable enough in their way, I grant, but those portions of the opera where the composer has had to carry on the thread of the story or where the dramatic element prevails are, to my mind, of still greater interest. Now, although Faust contains a number of pieces complete in themselves, yet these pieces succeed one another without producing the sensation of décousu one experiences in listening to many of the older operas; the tedious recitatives of yore have entirely disappeared; a great step has here been taken towards the realisation of the modern music drama, and it is well that the fact should be recognised. With Faust Gounod practically created a new and special form of French opera, one composed of various seemingly conflicting elements, but eminently suited to meet the requirements of the time.
     It was not long before the influence of Gounod began to make itself felt. We find it permeating the works of the entire succeeding generation of French composers. Bizet, Saint-Saëns, Massenet, Joncières, to mention some of the more famous; are, to a certain extent, all indebted to Gounod. In England his influence has also been very powerful, notably in the case of Goring Thomas.
     What is more curious is that Ambroise Thomas, Gounod’s senior by some years, should have fallen under the latter’s sway. But for this it is doubtful whether we should have had Mignon and Hamlet. The earlier operas of Ambroise Thomas were altogether of a different type. Auber had hitherto seemed to be his model, although it is possible to detect in all his works a tenuous sentimental note and a measure of innate refinement. Of a timid, sensitive nature, Ambroise Thomas was not one of those to lead a new movement, but he discreetly followed the current of the times, taking care, however, not to break altogether with tradition.
     Thus, if in Mignon and Hamlet we are able to trace the influence of Gounod, we also find characteristics of the older operatic style, and, be it said, a little of the composer’s own individuality, recognisable in certain dreamy melodies.
     I confess myself to a fondness for both these operas. How far this may be attributable to early recollections I cannot say, neither do I consider it necessary to apologise for the fact.
     Mignon, heard in its proper place, at the Paris Opéra Comique, is a charming work of its kind. As to Hamlet, of course, it cannot be accepted as an adequate musical interpretation of the Shakespearian tragedy. Yet it has a fascination of its own, a certain colour which is not altogether in disaccord with the subject. At any rate, this it seems to me, and I do not, therefore, feel disposed to analyse my impressions too closely or apply the scalpel to a work from which I have derived enjoyment.
     Ambroise Thomas was not a reformer, but, as Alfred Bruneau has truly remarked : "Certain portions of his last works are impregnated with a poetry which is occasionally touching and elegiac." After the death of Auber, Ambroise Thomas had been appointed to succeed him as director of the Paris Conservatoire. His duties naturally absorbed a great deal of his time. Nevertheless, in his old age he again entered the lists, and Françoise de Rimini, a work conceived on a large scale, was produced at the Opéra in 1882, without, however, obtaining more than a succès d’estime.
     A ballet on the subject of Shakespeare’s The Tempest, given at the same theatre seven years later, did not prove more fortunate, and it is as the composer of Mignon and Hamlet that Ambroise Thomas will be known to a limited posterity.

Last updated October 21, 2006