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Much of the music is tuneful and attractive, though cast in a stiff and old-fashioned form, and the masquemusic in the second act is as fresh and melodious as anything Gounod ever wrote. In 'Polyeucte' he attempted a style of severe simplicity in fancied keeping with Corneille's tragedy.
She had had everything a girl could have: kindness, admiration, bonbons, bouquets, the sense of exclusion from none of the privileges of the world she lived in, abundant opportunity for dancing, plenty of new dresses, the London Spectator, the latest publications, the music of Gounod, the poetry of Browning, the prose of George Eliot.
She finds the Commandant dead, and breaks into agonizing cries and tears. Only an accompanied recitative, but every ejaculation a cry of nature! Gounod is wrought up to an ecstasy by Mozart's declamation and harmonies. He suspends his analysis to make this comment:
Schumann's seductiveness also left its mark upon him, and he has felt the influence of Gounod, Bizet, and Wagner. But a stronger influence was that of Berlioz, his friend and master, and, above all, that of Liszt. We must stop at this last name.
It would be easy, if idle, to notice unmistakable reminiscences of France and Italy even in Strauss's most advanced works, such as Zarathustra and Heldenleben. Mendelssohn, Gounod, Wagner, Rossini, and Mascagni elbow one another strangely. But these disparate elements have a softer outline when the work is taken as a whole, for they have been absorbed and controlled by the composer's imagination.
Gounod, in his low and drawly voice, said: "Vous nous donnez, mon cher Auber, des choses par trop ennuyeuses aux concerts du Conservatoire. A la pensee des 'Quatre saisons' de Haydn je m'endors. Pourquoi ne s'est-il pas contente d'une saison?" Princess Metternich replied, "Que probablement en les composant Haydn s'est mis en quatre."
On the one hand, he traces his musical descent from Gounod, whose sensuous charm he has inherited to the full; on the other he has proved himself more susceptible to the influence of Wagner than any other French composer of his generation.
The Opera employs 1370 people, and its expenses are about 3,988,000 francs. In spite of the changes of taste and the campaign of the press, the Opera has remained to this day as it was in the time of Meyerbeer and Gounod and their disciples. But it would be foolish to pretend that it has not its public.
Mass was said by a vicar of the parish, and general absolution given by M. le Curé Marbeau. During the service there was given, under the direction of M. Lêtang, chapel-master, the Funeral March of Beethoven, the Kyrie of Neidermeyer, the Pie Jesu of Stradella, the Ego Sum of Gounod, the Libera Me of S. Rousseau. M. Deep officiated at the organ.
The last scene of all, the scene where a more sincere composer would have made his most stupendous effect, demanded at least sympathy with emotions for which Gounod at no time showed the slightest sympathy.
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