d'œuvre," that others might learn to appreciate it as much as he did. According to Gounod, Mozart was one of those men who seem destined, in their sphere, to reach a point which admits of no further advance. In another characteristic way he pays the master the profoundest homage:

When I was very young I spoke always of myself alone. I condescended after a few years to add Mozart and to say, "I am Mozart." It so happened, however, that, after studying a little more, I thought I had better say "Mozart and I." Now what I say is "Mozart."

IN THE ETERNAL CITY.

It was not till 1839 that Gounod secured the Prix de Rome, enabling him to continue his studies in Italy. At this time his mind was also much occupied with religious problems, and the compositions of this period were chiefly of a sacred character. Early last year the Century Magazine published Gounod's impressions of his sojourn in Italy.

I must confess (he wrote) that Rome did not at first correspond to the dreams my fancy had conceived. It struck me as cold, dry, cheerless and gloomy. . . . The first impression of austerity threw me into a profound melancholy. . . . However, little by little, every day contributed its sedative effect, and some six weeks elapsed before my sadness took its flight. Its very silence now began to charm me, and I found peculiar pleasure in visiting the Forum and all those other remains of greatness and power now gone, over which has been extended for ages the august and peaceful crook of the Shepherd of Nations.

"ABBÉ GOUNOD."

In 1843 we find Gounod back in Paris making the rounds of the publishers, but his works were one and all politely declined. One day, when he was unusually weary of the world, he strayed into a chapel in which two hundred priests were kneeling and chanting litanies, etc., to the Virgin. Gounod knelt among the worshipers and asked of one of them what church this was:

"It is the chapel of the Seminary of Foreign Missions." This was the ideal place of refuge from the harsh world without, he thought, and at the end of the ceremonies he timidly addressed a priest who was kneelin one of the choir stalls :

"Mon père, what shall I do to remain always in this house?"

And five years Gounod studied in this holy house, filling also the posts of organist and leading tenor. He had even come to be spoken of as the "Abbé Gounod," when one day the world learned that "Sapho," a lyrical drama, was to be presented at the Grand Opera under Madame Pauline Viardot, and that Gounod was the composer. Gradually he returned to the world, but he always kept his love for the church. The music of the altar was his domain, and though he has had two great successes in the theatre, in his old age he returned to his first love-mysticism and sacred music.

FAILURES AND MARRIAGE.

No composer ever failed oftener or was less discouraged by his repeated failures. "Sapho " was not

a success; the music to Ponsard's "Ulysses" was a fiasco; and "La Nonne Sanglante" (The Bleeding Nun) was a failure. A setting of "Le Médecin Malgré Lui" did not fare much better, but it found its way to London under the title of The Mock Doctor." Meanwhile Gounod had married the daughter of M. Zimmermann, a professor of music, and "Faust" was waiting for a hearing. Before looking further at his works, let us repair for a brief while to the luxuriant home that Gounod has been enabled to establish for himself in the French capital.

II. GOUNOD AT HOME.

The Paris home of M. Gounod is situated in the Place Malesherbes, in the Quartier Monceau. The splendid house in French Renaissance style was built some twelve years ago, by M. Jean Pigny, his brother-in-law, on a site at the angle of the Rue Mont Chanin, opposite the statue of Alexander Dumas père, the last work of Gustave Doré. A writer in the London World has put on record a description of this famous palace :

The gates of wrought iron at the foot of the broad staircase are no soon r passed than you are lost in admiration at the beauty of everything which meets your eye. M. Pigny adroitly reserved his effect of subdued light for the musical sanctum sanctorum, but no hue could possibly be too bright for the decoration of the approaches to it.

The most famous looms in Smyrna were occupied for an entire twelvemonth in producing the thick carpet on which you tread; frescoed figures of the Muses, with appropriate inscriptions, stand out boldly from a background of cerulean blue; every available corner is occupied by a conservatory filled with tropical plants; and the low pealing of a distant organ would greet your ear as you halted before a Gothic screen of delicate metal work, and touched with feelings of awe and trepidation a mediæval bell pull of exquisite proportions.

The servant, of ecclesiastical mien, who opened the glazed door, spoke with bated breath, and in accordance with his request you followed him along a long corridor till you came unexpectedly to a huge mirror which entirely concealed the entrance to his master's closelyguarded atelier. A spring is touched, the great sheet of glass rolls slowly back, and you find yourself at the head of a short flight of steps leading down to a vast apartment illuminated only by narrow stained glass windows. and a solitary reading lamp, which sheds its rays dimly over a writing table and the costly Persian prayer carpets spread upon the parquet floor.

THE SANCTUM.

The same writer continues:

As your eye became gradually accustomed to the prevailing gloom you would perceive a man, seated, with his back to the door, before a large organ, the topmost pipes of which almost touch the oaken beams of the open roof. A skull-cap of black velvet partly concealed his long gray hair, and his hands continued to glide gently over the keys till his servant whispered in his ear that a visitor had dared to invade the privacy of his ideal music-room, which reminds you of both an Eastern mosque and a Western shrine.

As Charles Gounod came forward to bid you welcome with accents almost as soft and caressing as his own melody, you saw that his beard was both longer and

whiter than it was when he tarried for a while among us after the Franco-German war. In the button-hole of his loose velvet coat he wore the crimson rosette of the Legion of Honor.

OBJETS D'ART.

Your eye roaming about the room would take note of Franceschi's medallion of Christ in front of the organ, Jean Gounod's copy of Titian's "Holy Family," the curious piano table, planned by M. Pleyel for the composer's speci l use, and Ghiberti's bas-relief, from the Florentine B ptistry, in the centre of the sculptured over-mantel of black oak.

The dog inkstand, Herbert's reproduction of a fragment of Michael Angelo's "Last Judgment," the costly Japanese vases, the medallion of Jeanne d'Arc, and portraits of Lorenzo and Giuliano di Medici have all a history; and the author of "Faust" is not a little proud of the cases with folding covers he has contrived for the accommodation of his papers and the padlocked receptacle in which he guards the MS. score of all his great works.

The head of Isaiah from the Sistine Chapel was a New Year's gift from his artist son; and your host would expatiate on the merits of the copy of the picture of the death and resurrection of St. Zenobia, his favorite painting in the Duomo at Florence, while he would fill a wellblackened pipe with the strongest caporal to smoke during the half hour he has consented to chat with you.

An electrical signal caused the concierge to put the hydraulic blowing apparatus of the great organ in motion, and the master would play some such piece as his Ave Maria" for your edification.

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THE GOUNOD FAMILY.

Gounod's residence was the second floor. His sisterin-law lived on the first and overhead dwelt his son, while the ground floor was occupied by Gounod's daughter, married to Baron Pierre de Lassus. In the summer the whole family would flit to the Villa Zimmermann at St. Cloud, a country house which Madame Gounod inherited from her father; and November would find the family established again under the patriarchal roof.

AMIABLE WEAKNESSES.

Like most great men, Charles Gounod had his amiable weaknesses. His briarwood pipe was one of them; and although he wore a ring modeled from a relic found in the Roman catacombs on his finger, he frankly confessed that he received finest inspirations while playing "patience" at the little card table placed in the shadow of the organ.

ON TOBACCO SMOKING.

He loved his pipe dearly. In this connection the following words of his have an interesting bearing on tobacco smoking and its effects:

I am

I admit incerely the truth of Tolstoi's opinion in all that has to do with the intellectual faculties. I think that the habit of using tob cco produces a sluggishness of these faculties, that this sluggishness follows upon the habit, and by abuse may reach even to atrophy. not so sure that it could positively result in the annihilation of Conscience, whose witness is too startling to undergo so easily an eclipse so disastrous. I say Conscience, be it noted; I do not say Will. Conscience is a Divine decree; Will is a human energy. The latter can be weakened by abuse of the organs; the former, however, seems

to me quite beyond all effect of the sort, because it creates the responsibility without which man ceases to be amenable. I have smoked a great deal. I do not recall that it has ever modified the judgment of my conscience on the morality of my acts.

AMIABLE VIRTUES.

Gounod's punctuality and exactitude were proverbial. If anything happened to prevent him keeping an appointment he always wrote so that you should not make your call for nothing. He attended to his own correspondence. "Too many persons talk to me of their private affairs for me to let a third person know about them."

III. LYRICAL DRAMA.

Gounod's reputation as a composer rests mainly on the operas of "Faust" and the "Roméo et Juliette ;" on his two oratorios "The Redemption" and "Mors et Vita ;" and last but not least on his "Ave Maria.” FAUST.

Faust" have been

Sixteen musical versions of 66 given to the world-settings by Prince Radziwill, Spohr, Schumann, Liszt, Wagner, Berlioz, Boïto, and other less well-known composers. Gounod's marvellous interpretation of Goethe's masterpiece was first produced on March 19, 1859, and was fiercely criticised. Can those critics now realize that it is the opera of all others that never fails to fill a house? M. Choudens purchased the publishing rights for $2,000, and Messrs. Chappell, it is understood, secured the English publishing rights for $200, thinking so little of their bargain, however, that they omitted to register the performing copyrigh.. Mr. Mapleson was afterwards paid $2,000 to produce it, and "Faust," after successes in England, made its way back to Paris to continue its triumphant career.

CREATING A PART.

An opera that has been heard thousands of times and that never fails to charm and draw full houses has naturally produced a number of Marguerites to personify Goethe's heroine. The creator of the part was Madame Carvalho, wife of the manager of the theatre. What her business was is set forth by Gounod somewhat as follows:

If the singer does not infuse some of her personal feeling into her song neither the natural qualities of her voice nor her acquired technical knowledge will enable her to thrill her hearers. .. The work which the author has created by his heart and his imagination is, so to speak, created afresh by another's heart and imagination -intelligent reflexes of his own-by which it is conveyed to the public.

THE FIRST MARGUERITE.

donna, she created Marguerite, and held the stage with triumph for more than thirty years.

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ROMÉO ET JULIETTE.

"La Reine de Saba" succeeded "Faust" in 1862, and Gounod, it is said, was greatly disconcerted at the failure of this particular work. Nevertheless, it turned out a success at Brussels and Darmstadt. In 1864 Mireille," founded on Mistral's Provençal idyll, was received with favor, and in April, 1867, "Roméo et Juliette" followed. It is noteworthy that the best settings of Shakespeare have been written by foreigners. "Otello" and "Falstaff" by Verdi, and "Roméo et Juliette" by Gounod. Similarly the greatest musical version of "Faust" has proceeded from the pen of the Frenchman. · Roméo et Juliette" has become quite a favorite at Covent Garden. In June, 1889, it was first given there in French, with M. Jean de Reszke and Madame Melba in the title rôles, and the French version continues to find acceptance. An English version was prepared

be a relief to hasten on to the Birmingham Festival of 1882, which was marked by some eminently satisfactory features. Of the new works which it called into existence," The Redemption " occupied the largest share of public attention. Described and discussed beforehand, presented with every possible advantage, and executed by the first artists of the day, under the composer's personal direction, it is small wonder that the work was hailed with enthusiasm.

Gounod was his own librettist. The oratorio is a lyrical setting of the three great facts on which depend the existence of the Christian Church-the Passion and Death of the Saviour; His glorious life on earth from His Resurrection to His Ascension; and the spread of Christianity in the world through the mission of the Apostles. These three parts are preceded by a prologue narrating briefly the Creation, the Fall, and the Promise of Redemption.

THE LEIT-MOTIF.

The first noticeable feature in the music is a leit-motif to typify the character of the Redeemer.

for the Carl Rosa Opera Company in 1890. “Philémon et Baucis" has also been heard several times at Covent Garden.

IV. THE MUSIC OF THE ALTAR.

All Gounod's works, the operas included, are deeply imbued with religious feeling, and it is as much as a composer of sacred music as the composer of "Faust" that the French master has made his mark, especially in England. A correspondent of the Musical Standard says that Gounod, when in London, was a frequent attender at the Church of St. Andrew in Wells Street. Sir Joseph Barnby was their organist and choir master, and he had introduced a great number of the French composer's works. Gounod was, in fact, much attached to the English church services, and on one occasion averred that the service at St. Paul's Cathedral was " the finest musical treat in Europe!"

THE REDEMPTION.

To escape the siege of Paris Gounod took refuge in England, and during his absence "Les Deux Reines" and "Jeanne d'Arc" were produced at Paris. Three other works followed, all of them adding little to his reputation apparently. It will therefore

This exquisite theme, which asserts itself first in the Prologue, constantly recurs throughout the work when the mission of the Saviour is dwelt upon. In the "Mass in honor of Jeanne d'Arc "--not the play alluded to above-Gounod has again made use of the leit-motif, the "leading motive" of Jeanne d'Arc herself; and in " Mors et Vita" there are several such melodic forms.

"THE WORK OF MY LIFE."

It is stated that, after the refusal of the work in its shorter form in 1873 by the committee of the Birmingham Festival, “The Redemption " was submitted to the Albert Hall authorities by the composer, who was then conductor of the choir; but the proposal ultimately fell through. Much of the music of the Pentecost scene was written as far back as 1867, when Gounod was on a visit to Rome. He has pathetically referred to the oratorio as the work of my life," and on standing up to conduct it for the first time at Birmingham he has recorded that his feelings nearly overcame him.

DEATH AND LIFE.

"Mors et Vita" is more melodious than "The Redemption," yet it has not taken quite such a firm hold

in this country. No doubt this is partly due to the text being in the Latin tongue, whereas "The Redemption" is in English. "Mors et Vita" forms the sequel or continuation of "The Redemption," and among the essential features which the composer has here sought to express are the tears which death causes us to shed here below; the hope of a better life; the solemn dread of unerring Justice, and the tender and filial trust in eternal Love.

LEADING MOTIVES.

The subjoined melody expresses the terror inspired by the sense of the inflexibility of justice and by the anguish of punishment.

The second melodic form of sorrow and tears is transformed by the use of the major key into the expression of consolation and joy.

The happiness of the blessed is the third leading motive.

Lastly comes a melodic form to announce the awakening of the dead, as the terrifying call of the angelic trumpets.

GOUNOD AND THE QUEEN.

On the news of Gounod's death reaching Balmoral, the Queen, who was not a little partial to the Frenchman, forwarded, through Lord Dufferin, the following telegram to Madame Gounod:

The news has just reached me of M. Gounod's death. Pray convey to Madame Gounod and her family my sympathy and deep regret. It is an irreparable loss. I entertain the greatest admiration for the works of that great master. (Signed) VICTORIA R. ET I.

"The Redemption " is dedicated to Her Majesty ; "Mors et Vita" is dedicated to the Pope, but the Queen attended a performance of it at the Albert Hall when it was introduced in London.

cently a pendant to this famous piece was written on Bach's Second Prelude and was brought forward as an interesting novelty at a promenade concert, but its popularity is not likely to be as abiding as the first. V. LIFE'S CLOSE.

Our composer was happily neither deaf nor blind; but it is almost incredible that a musician should prefer deafness to being blind. Rubinstein is reported to take the same view of the two calamities: To see (says Gounod) is to enjoy. Future life will be nothing more than universal vision.

If I had to choose, he says again, one of these two terrible calamities, deafness or blindness, I do not think that I should hesitate an instant. The deaf are generally said to be less cheerful than the blind; but notwithstanding the fact that loss of hearing would affect me in regard to that which has always been the source of my very keenest and deepest feelings-I mean music-yet between being deaf and never again seeing anything one loves there is, in my opi ion, so vast a gulf as to make that one consideration sufficient to decide the question.

One must not forget that a musician can enjoy music to a great degree by merely reading it; and though the actual sensation of the sounds is necessary to make the impression absolutely complete, yet it is sufficiently strong to convey melody, harmony, rhythm, quality, and all the other elements of music-in a word, to give a real mental hearing of the piece so as to stamp it on the mind without the aid of the external sounds.

But blindness! the privations it implies; the sacrifices it imposes; the virtual imprisonment of not being able to walk alone; the dismal darkness of never beholding the face of nature; the silence and solitude of being unable to read and write ! As long as he can read a book a deaf man remains in close communication with the whole circle of human thought. The blind man, on the other hand, is dependent upon others for all he wants; he is the prisoner of prisoners. A thousand times rather, then, be deaf than blind.

GOUNOD AND HIS MASTER.

A more striking contrast to the tragic circumstances of the death of the master, for whom Gounod's admiration was boundless, than was shown by the universal sorrow expressed at the death of the French composer, it would be difficult to imagine. Mozart was buried among the nameless poor, with no friend to shed a tear, and no cross or stone to mark the exact site of his resting place. Gounod's remains have been accorded the highest honors which his country can bestow.

PREMONITIONS.

The allusions of the two composers to approaching death were remarkable. Only a fortnight before Gounod died a representative of the Revue de Famille paid him a visit and asked him to write the article on "Marie Antoinette as a Musician" for M. Jules Simon's magazine. In the course of conversation he said to his interviewer:

I have never been able to do any work that my soul did not thoroughly feel. This article does not come home to me; and then, mark you, I am strictly enjoined to abstain from any kind of work. You must know that some time ago I had an attack of paralysis. Now, when I look at you in this way I can only see one half of your face. I know I look robust; but,