United States or Belize ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Mon Fils," of "Le Prophete," with great effect, accompanying herself. But this was not the kind of music to please our audience. No one questioned this, and he was allowed to remain unheard. Later I sang "Oh! that We Two were Maying," by Gounod, a much too serious song; but the Empress said she thought it was the most beautiful one she had ever heard. I think so, too.
Instead of specializing his vocal parts after the manner of Verdi and Gounod for high sopranos, screaming tenors, and high baritones with an effective compass of about a fifth at the extreme tiptop of their ranges, and for contraltos with chest registers forced all over their compass in the manner of music hall singers, he employs the entire range of the human voice freely, demanding from everybody very nearly two effective octaves, so that the voice is well exercised all over, and one part of it relieves the other healthily and continually.
As I had not, he would think it over and very often he would confess that I was right. "Your childhood," Gounod once told me, "wasn't musical." He was wrong, for he did not know the many tokens of my childhood. Many of my attempts are unfinished to say nothing of those I destroyed but among them are songs, choruses, cantatas, and overtures, none of which will ever see the light.
Her fingers, prompted by a note, had gone from it into Gounod. "Will you marry me?" "Certainly not." It was as though he had asked her to go skating. To mark the absurdity of it her voice mounted. "Le printemps chasse les hivers " The words are imbecile but the air, which is charming, seemed to occupy her wholly. "Et sourit dans les arbres verts "
Don Giovanni hesitates to draw against so old a man, but the Commandant will not parley. They fight. The Commandant is no match for his powerful young opponent, and falls, dying. A few broken ejaculations, and all is ended. The orchestra sings a slow descending chromatic phrase "as if exhausted by the blood which oozes from the wound," says Gounod. How simple the means of expression!
I'll give you a glass of sherry, and " "Never touch anything, except at meals. I used to when I was as young as you, but not now. But I will go and hear a little music." Glad to have a companion, Frank took out the violin, and he played all the melodies he knew; and his mind ran chiefly on Schubert and Gounod.
The Opéra-Comique has also the advantage of excellent conductors, and one of them, M. Messager, who is now Director, has, by his clever interpretations, greatly contributed to the success of the works of the new school. The Société Nationale Even when musical taste was most decadent, the works of Gounod, Ambroise Thomas, and Massé, had always upheld the name of French opéra-comique.
There was a queer mixture of people: some diplomats, and some well-known members of society, but I fancy that the guests were mostly artists; at least they looked so. The most celebrated ones were pointed out to me. There were Saint-Saens, Prince Poniatowski, Gounod, and others. I wondered that Richard Wagner was not there; but I suppose that there is little sympathy between these two geniuses.
It is hardly a question that Gounod has succeeded in an unrivaled degree in expressing the characters and symbolisms of Mephistopheles, Faust, and Gretchen in music not merely beautiful, but spiritual, humorous, subtile, and voluptuous, accordingly as the varied meanings of Goethe's masterpiece demand.
Of course, if Berlioz had wanted to make an opera out of Goethe's drama, he could have done so. He would then have anticipated Gounod and Boito and, possibly, have achieved one of those popular successes for which he hungered. When the Faust subject first seized upon his imagination, he knew it only in a prose translation of Goethe's poem made by Gerald de Nerval.
Word Of The Day