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SON OEUVRE

You will find below, as well as a text signed by Paul Prévost, a reference bar directing you to related pages. In each of them you will find a list of compositions referring to a chosen subject. Furthermore, by choosing "Operas", you will have access to a complete summary of these.

More than 600 works are listed on this site!

Nevertheless, Gounod's production being so impressive, it's possible that we've missed some, in which case, thank you to notify me by e-mail, so that I can add them to the list.




" In the first years of the musical career ( 1840-1850 ), Gounod was fascinated by religious music. Seduced by the palestrinian purity he discovers in Rome, tempted by the ecclesiastical dress, it is in music for the mass that he forges his first weapons as a composer. He discovers the lyric theater at the dawn of the Second Empire (Sapho, in 1851), time during which he will compose his biggest successes for the scene. The fall of the regime - and the consequences on the private life of the composer - coincides with the drying up of his lyric inspiration. He returns then to his first source of inspiration and gives his best oratorios " .... " Most of the commentators picture Gounod as one of the main representative of the musical style of the Second Empire, and it cannot be denied by chronology. The extreme refinement of his language, his concern for details, the eclecticism of his inspiration, a melodic and harmonious sweetness, sometimes devoid of firmness, relates rather well to the aesthetic criteria, in favour of which current historians try to define arts under Napoleon III's administration "

Paul Prévost
Maître de conférences at the
University of Metz

 

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