GOUNOD (Charles). - Lot 113

GOUNOD (Charles). Born in Paris. 1818-1893. French composer. Grand Prix de Rome in 1839. Author of "Faust", one of his most famous operas. AUTOGRAPH LETTER TO "CHER PETIT AMI" [THE PAINTER JULES RICHOMME]. Paris, March 23, 1866. 4 pages large in-8 (letter incomplete). EXTRAORDINARY LETTER TO LAMI DE TOUJOURS THE PAINTER RICHOMME, WHOM GOUNOD CONSIDERED AS HIS BROTHER, ON THE SUBJECT OF MUSICAL WORKS, IN PARTICULAR HIS OPERA-COMIQUE LA COLOMBE, AND LISZT'S MASS GIVEN AT SAINT-EUSTACHE CHURCH IN PARIS "La grande rumeur de Paris en ce moment, c'est l'abbé Liszt"...While I lead the flat, bourgeois life of an inoffensive citizen and an author more or less rehearsing the 2 acts of his Colombe, held back on the not very rural hill of Rue La Rochefoucault, you are swimming in antiquity, breathing in the air, the sky, the soil and the history of this vast, inexhaustible Italy. Here you are, at last, in front of the flagstones of the old sacred way, separated by no more than five or six meters from the modern trample: here you are, devouring with your eyes and feet this truly eternal city, where Christianity walks, silent and grave, over the ashes of its first martyrs and its first executioners. From the Coliseum to St. Mary Major! or from St. Mary Major to St. John Lateran! or from St. John Lateran to St. Croix of Jerusalem!... Everywhere, what deep, melancholy impressions! and what gentle, stern serenity! Jules Massenet has just interrupted my letter: he's on his way out. I told him I was writing to you; he sends me his regards. He tells me that Leuven has just entrusted him with an act of Adenis. As for myself, dear child, I have nothing new to tell you. Poor Colombe, of whom I spoke at the beginning, has to compose a show with two acts by Flotow that are being rehearsed at the same time as mine (...). Romeo is resting as a result of these serious circumstances; as soon as La Colombe has flown to the public, I shall fly to St Cloud to finish Juliette: after which, God only knows what I shall do; for, 1° I have given Legouvé back the Contes de la Reine de Navarre: 2° I have cancelled a project with Meilhac and L. Halévy: 3° I have given up on a great drama that I have had at home for a year. In short, after Romeo, I leave the theater and tell him m........ or "Ite missa est!" Speaking of theater, art has just suffered a painful loss: Clapisson is no more: he succumbed the day before yesterday, leaving the Institut with an unexpected void that we'll soon be dealing with. We're going to resume our visits: perhaps a few have already been made to the funeral, which I made a point of not attending. The big buzz in Paris at the moment is about Abbé Liszt. About a week ago, I attended the performance of his orchestral mass in the church of St Eustache: I was next to Berlioz in a choir stall, and the abbé was behind us. I was standing next to Berlioz in a choir stall, and the abbé was behind us. I had in front of me some forty schoolgirls, who were coping as badly as they could with a vocal responsibility that was often very heavy for them: I also had, in my right ear, bassoons, clarinets, flutes, horns, trumpets, tubas and trombones, whose close proximity destroyed for me the balance of the overall sonority, so that I was unable to appreciate the purely musical value of the work. It struck me as curious; choppy, independent sometimes to the point of anarchy, often clashed with modulations, almost always disjointed; it seems that the author has, above all, a fear of logic and a horror of tonality: it's impatient (sic) of research and mischief. Alongside all this, there are some striking touches, all the more so because what is clearer than the rest benefits from the surrounding confusion: at every moment, you think you see a melodic phrase being painted... In 1861, Franz Liszt retired to Rome and took holy orders, giving his life and work a mystical twist. The oratorio Christus (completed in 1866) and the mass Missa choralis (1865) were written at the same time. Liszt composed four masses for choir and orchestra. The composer Vincent dIndy would later confirm, in reporting Liszt's words, what Gounod had already sensed in this letter: that Liszt aspired to the "suppression of tonality". Berlioz, Franck and Liszt all had the same teacher in common with Gounod: Reicha, who gave Gounod lessons for a year before he entered the Conservatoire.