Ave maria de charles gounod biography

Charles-François Gounod’s “Ave Maria” is a curious case in music history – the result of a musical collaboration that expanded through a century. The two great composers, in this case, Charles Gounod and Johann Sebastian Bach were not even contemporaries. The melody of this song was crafted about 130 years after its accompaniment, while Gounod added words to his composition after another seven years.

Bach's Prelude

Johann Sebastian Bach published “Book 1” of “The Well-Tempered Clavier” in 1722. The “Prelude in C major” is the first piece of this collection and is a famous piece among piano students since that time. Out of the 35 measures present in the Prelude, there are 34 measures of “16th-note arpeggios” and one measure consisting of a single, “whole-note C-major chord.” The work can be characterized by its inventive and rich harmony, and frequent cacophony.

Bach, Gounod, and The Mendelssohn 

Charles Gounod considered Johann Sebastian as the “Master of masters.” He was introduced to some of Bach’s work on the keyboard in 1840 when he met Fanny Mendelssohn Hensel. She and her husband became close friends with Gounod. According to Charles, “Fanny would play the piano with a palpable simplicity and readiness, signifying her passion towards it. She introduced me to various masterpieces in German music, including some works of Johann Sebastian Bach. They included a variety of Felix Mendelssohn's compositions and also numerous concertos, preludes, fugues, and sonatas of Bach.” Later, Gounod was invited by Felix Mendelssohn to visit Leipzig. Felix subsequently played some of Bach’s organ works in a private concert in the “Thomaskirche.” Incidentally, Bach had been a choirmaster there.

Gounod's Espièglerie

In 1852, Gounod used to spend several evenings at his Paris home accompanied by his fiancée Anna Zimmermann. Anna’s father, Pierre-Joseph-Guillaume Zimmermann was a famous composer and pianist who had taught at the Paris Conservatory for many years. One

Composition by Bach and Gounod

"Ave Maria" is a setting of the Latin prayer Ave Maria, originally published in 1853 as "Méditation sur le 1er prélude de piano de S. Bach". The piece consists of a melody by the French Romantic composer Charles Gounod that he superimposed over an only very slightly changed version of Bach's Prelude No. 1 in C major, BWV 846, from Book I of his The Well-Tempered Clavier, 1722. The 1853 publication has French text, but it is the 1859 version with the Latin "Ave Maria" which became popular.

History

Gounod improvised the melody, and his future father-in-law Pierre-Joseph-Guillaume Zimmerman transcribed the improvisation and in 1853 made an arrangement for violin (or cello) with piano and harmonium. The same year it appeared with the words of Alphonse de Lamartine's poem "Le livre de la vie" ("The Book of Life"). In 1859, Jacques-Léopold Heugel published a version with the familiar Latin text. The version of Bach's prelude used by Gounod includes the "Schwencke measure" (m.23), a measure allegedly added by Christian Friedrich Gottlieb Schwencke in an attempt to correct what he or someone else erroneously deemed a "faulty" progression, even though this sort of progression was standard in Bach's music.

Alongside Schubert's "Ave Maria", the Bach/Gounod "Ave Maria" has become a fixture at funerals, weddings, and quinceañeras (girls' 15th birthday). There are many different instrumental arrangements including for violin and guitar, string quartet, piano solo, cello, and trombone. Opera singers, such as Nellie Melba, Franco Corelli and Luciano Pavarotti

French composer (1818–1893)

Charles-François Gounod (; French:[ʃaʁlfʁɑ̃swaɡuno]; 17 June 1818 – 18 October 1893), usually known as Charles Gounod, was a French composer. He wrote twelve operas, of which the most popular has always been Faust (1859); his Roméo et Juliette (1867) also remains in the international repertory. He composed a large amount of church music, many songs, and popular short pieces including his "Ave Maria" (an elaboration of a Bach piece) and "Funeral March of a Marionette".

Born in Paris into an artistic and musical family, Gounod was a student at the Conservatoire de Paris and won France's most prestigious musical prize, the Prix de Rome. His studies took him to Italy, Austria and then Prussia, where he met Felix Mendelssohn, whose advocacy of the music of Bach was an early influence on him. He was deeply religious, and after his return to Paris, he briefly considered becoming a priest. He composed prolifically, writing church music, songs, orchestral music and operas.

Gounod's career was disrupted by the Franco-Prussian War. He moved to England with his family for refuge from the Prussian advance on Paris in 1870. After peace was restored in 1871 his family returned to Paris but he remained in London, living in the house of an amateur singer, Georgina Weldon, who became the controlling figure in his life. After nearly three years he broke away from her and returned to his family in France. His absence, and the appearance of younger French composers, meant that he was no longer at the forefront of French musical life; although he remained a respected figure he was regarded as old-fashioned during his later years, and operatic success eluded him. He died at his house in Saint-Cloud, near Paris, at the age of 75.

Few of Gounod's works remain in the regular international repertoire, but his influence on later French composers was considerable. In his music there is a strand of romantic

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Ave Maria is an emblematic opera by Gounod, who was particularly devoted to religious music. In fact, the French composer even entered the Saint-Sulpice Seminary! But music was his first vocation and he wrote in his memoir: “I felt after some time that it was impossible for me to live without my art and, leaving the religious habit behind me,
I came back to the world.” And yet he found a way of reconciling his two souls, writing some sublimely pious works, and his Ave Maria is without a doubt among the most beautiful! This is not only because of its melody—one of the most delicate in the repert