Faust

Composer: GOUNOD, Charles
  • Gounod first read Goethe’s Faust in 1840, while he was studying at the French Academy in Rome after winning the Prix de Rome in 1839.1
    • Gounod’s experience in Rome included several visits with Fanny Mendelssohn Hensel, who was visiting Italy in 1840. Gounod wrote that Hensel introduced him to “various masterpieces of German music which I have never heard before, among them a number of the works of Sebastian Bach− sonatas, fugues, preludes and concertos − and many of Mendelssohn’s compositions, which were like a glimpse of a new world to me.” Bach’s music, and Mendelssohn’s, would become a strong influence on Gounod; for example, in his religious music, of which we get a taste in the finale of Faust.2
  • Gounod began drafting Faust in 1856,3 and completed the work in 1859, and it premiered at the Théâtre Lyrique in Paris on March 3, 1859.4
  • The librettists were Jules Barbier and Michel Carré. This team’s many other collaborations the libretti for Gounod’s Roméo et Juliette, Offenbach’s Tales of Hoffmann, and Thomas’s Hamlet.5
  • Gounod composed the ballet music for Faust in 1868, ahead of a new production at the Paris Opéra. Productions at the Opéra traditionally included a ballet sequence. This production opened in 1869 to great success.6
  • Synopsis of Faust from the Metropolitan Opera

Sources

  1.  Steven Huebner, “Gounod, Charles-François,” Grove Music Online (2001), accessed March 4, 2021,  https://www.oxfordmusiconline.com/grovemusic/view/10.1093/gmo/9781561592630.001.0001/omo-9781561592630-e-0000040694.
  2.  Georg Predota, “The Roman Holiday: Charles Gounod and Fanny Hensel,” Interlude (June 8, 2018), accessed March 4, 2021, https://interlude.hk/roman-holiday-charles-gounod-fanny-hensel/. 
  3.  Steven Huebner, “Gounod, Charles-François,” Grove Music Online (2001), accessed March 4, 2021,  https://www.oxfordmusiconline.com/grovemusic/view/10.1093/gmo/9781561592630.001.0001/omo-9781561592630-e-0000040694.
  4.  “Faust, CG 4 (Gounod, Charles),” IMSLP, accessed March 4, 2021, https://imslp.org/wiki/Faust,_CG_4_(Gounod,_Charles). 
  5.  Steven Huebner, “Gounod, Charles-François,” Grove Music Online (2001), accessed March 4, 2021,  https://www.oxfordmusiconline.com/grovemusic/view/10.1093/gmo/9781561592630.001.0001/omo-9781561592630-e-0000040694.
  6. Ibid.

Cut IDs

40853 42367 14964 43202 14646 14563 23647 20509 10231 13915 10230 14722 10003 47910 43059