Music Trade Review
Issue: 1892 Vol. 16 N. 14 - Page 10
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THE MUSIC TRADE REVIEW.
298
Qompos ^
of musicians—English, German,
^
French, Italian, Hungarian, Polish, Rus-
sian—have written music on or for Goethe's
"Faust; " but to the world in general, for a
generation of time, there has been but one com-
poser of "Faust," the Frenchman, Charles
Francois Gounod.
The circumstance is only a little more singu-
lar than the other, that Gounod has written no
other opera that enjoys'a tithe of the popularity
which '' Faust'' won at its first production in
1859, and has maintained, without loss, ever
since.
It is a little more singular for the reason that
though there have been many creative artists
who put their all in a single work, there are not
so many who drew their inspiration for their
masterpiece from a literature foreign to theirs
in language and spirit.
The vitality of " Faust " was again forced
upon the attention of all observers of music his-
tory by the incidents of the last Metropolitan
season in New York.
Here it accomplished the work for the man-
agement, which for several years had been per-
formed by the lyric dramas of Wagner ; it saved
the season from financial shipwreck.
Were it not that a spirit of liberality has been
inculcated by the cosmopolitanism of German
opera, the circumstance might have been doub-
ly humiliating to the opera patrons of German
birth.
A German, not a Frenchman, ought to have
written the enduring '' Faust '' opera. That he
did not must be set down either to the credit or
debit of the German character, as one chooses
to think in the premises.
Gounod's " F a u s t " would never have been
possible had he and his librettists felt the rever-
ence for Goethe which the Germans feel. This
reverence was set on the highest ideal that can
present itself to the German musician,—the
composition of incidental music to Goethe's
dramatic poem.
That ideal haunted the uiind of Beethoven in
his declining years, when he was too full of his
last symphony, quartets, and sonatas, to under-
take the commission which Breitkopf and Har-
tel offered him.
It found a realization in part when Schumann
set his " Scenes from Goethe's Faust," portions
of which are almost ineffable in their beauty. It
hovered before the youthful Wagner when he
was struggling for a livelihood in Paris. It has
never deserted, and probably never will desert
the Teutonic imagination.
Gounod's opera has always been a piece of
artistic sacrilege. The Germans could never de-
spoil their literary masterpiece for the sake of
getting out of it the story of intrigue which
sufficed the French authors, and so they have
never forgiven either Gounod or his lovely
score. Their knowledge that Shakespeare and
Racine have fared no better than Goethe at the
hands of conscienceless French librettists has
no balm in it; they do not love Shakespeare
and Racine as they do Goethe.
But they could not close their ears to the ex-
quisite loveliness of Gounod's Garden Scene, or
shut the door of their emotions to the passionate
ecstasy which breathes through the love music.
And while condemning the transformation
which their beloved Gretchen has had to under-
go, and smiling at the metamorphosis of
Goethe's somewhat rude maiden'into the ethe-
real creature which is the joint product of Gou-
nod, Ary Scheffer, and Madame Carvalho, some
of them have even been obliged to admit that
the French Marguerite stands a little higher in
the ethical scale than the German Gretchen.
But if the Germans are grieved in the contem-
plation of the librettos of '' Faust'' and '' Mig-
non," they have no cause to do aught but ad-
mire the composer of the former opera. No
foreign composer has paid a lovelier tribute to
Mozart than Gounod in his little book on '' Don
Giovanni," and none has been more faithful in
spirit to his German models—Mozart, Weber,
and Wagner.
There has been nothing violently revolution-
ary in the influence of Gounod in his own coun-
try, but in all things he has stood for the true,
the beautiful, and the good. He has helped
Wagner break down the barriers of artificial and
unnatural forms in opera; and though he has
never been privileged to enjoy a second success
like that achieved in 1859 with " Faust, " he has
seen his example followed by those who have
shared the national stage with him.
He has been harshly judged ; but even his
severest critic, the irascible Von Bulow himself,
who divides all opera composers into two
classs,—" 1, Those who add to the repertory of
the barrel organ ; and 2, Those who borrow
from the repertory of the barrel organ,"—has
been obliged to yield to him a place in the first
class.
It is a significant fact, apropros of Von Bu-
low's opinion of Gounod, that the opera which
Von Bulow puts down as the finest of Gounod's
creations, is a version of Moliere's comedy - La
THE
Sterling Company,
MANUFACTURERS OF
Pianos and Organs,
FACTORY :
DERBY, CONN.
It is admitted by all that no piano ever put upon the
market has met with such success as THE STERLING
and thousands will testify to their superiority of work-
manship and durability. Why ? Because they are made
just as perfect as a piano can be made.
THE STERLING ORGAN has always taken the lead, and
the improvements made this year puts it far ahead of
all others. J^T" Send for Catalogue.
Hallet & Davis Pianos
Medicin malgre lui," which Gounod composed
while he had " Faust " in hand, and while Di-
rector Carvalho was hestating to produce the
latter opera, because a farce on^the same sub-
ject was occupying the stage of the Theatre
Porte St. Martin.
He chose his profession for love of it; and
while he always felt a strong inclination toward
the church, he has been able to delight his con-
science by devoting a large share of his time to
the composition of church music.
As a pensionnaire of the Institute, he spent
two delighful years in Rome, and visited the
chief cities of Germany on his way back to
Paris. He was admired in the Mendelssohn
household as a young man of twenty-five, and
there probably imbibed that love for the orato-
rio form to which he paid tribute a few years
ago, in the composition of '' The Redemption ''
and ' ' Mors ct J r ita.''
He began his operatic career with "Sappho,"
in 1851, at the Grand'Opera, but won his great-
est laurals with '' Faust,'' at the Theatre Lyr-
ique, for which institution his second-best work
'•'Romeo et Juliette," was also written. Its first
performance took place on April 27, 1867. His
oratorios were composed for the choral festivals
in Birmingham, England, "The Redemption "
in 1882, "Mors etVita " in 1885.—H. E. KREH--
, in Harper's Weekly.
f
HE great baritone, Lassalle, with a congenial
company of fellow artists, among whom
were Dunbar Price, Mrs. Blackstone and one of
the De Reszkes, was one noonday in the sum-
mer time taking breakfast on the veranda of the
Reservoir Hotel at Versailles, when two sad eyed
itinerant Italian musicians came along and be-
gan to play the harp and sing one of Valentine's
songs from " Faust. "
A sigh of dismay broke from the assembled
company, but Lassalle, who was in good humor
with his breakfast and with the world, said,
" Tenez, I'll fix them! " Pushing away his
coffee he arose, and tendering the singer a piece
of silver, said : " My friend, I'll show you how
that should be sung. You do not phrase that
song properly. " Then he burst forth with his
grand voice and sang the song through, to the
great delight of all within range.
The poor traveling musician turned green and
began to tremble with awe, and finally, when
the end came, touched his hat and murmured
humbly, " Merci, mon maitre, I will not sing
again when you may hear." As he slunk off
with his comrade of the harp a shower of laugh-
ter and coin followed him. He was not grateful.
He was stunned.—Irish Times.
THE Edna Piano and Ogan Co., of Monroe-
ville, Ohio, have just issued their annual cata-
logue, and it is full of cuts of their different
styles of organs, with descriptions of them told
in a concise manner. This young firm is rapidly
coming to the front and the Edna Organ is now
heard in many homes throughout the United
States.
__
One of the newspapers in Paris is reported to
be experimenting with type of glass, with grati-
fying results. We may yet be able to see
through those French newspaper jokes.—Yon-
kers Statesman.
CRAND, SQUARE AND UPRICHT.
Indorsed by Liszt, Gottschalk. Wehli. Bendel, Straus, Soro. Abt,
Paulus, Titiens, Heilbron and Germany's Greatest Masters.
Established over Half a Century.
BOSTON, MASS.
THE MUSIC TRADE REVIEW.
298
Qompos ^
of musicians—English, German,
^
French, Italian, Hungarian, Polish, Rus-
sian—have written music on or for Goethe's
"Faust; " but to the world in general, for a
generation of time, there has been but one com-
poser of "Faust," the Frenchman, Charles
Francois Gounod.
The circumstance is only a little more singu-
lar than the other, that Gounod has written no
other opera that enjoys'a tithe of the popularity
which '' Faust'' won at its first production in
1859, and has maintained, without loss, ever
since.
It is a little more singular for the reason that
though there have been many creative artists
who put their all in a single work, there are not
so many who drew their inspiration for their
masterpiece from a literature foreign to theirs
in language and spirit.
The vitality of " Faust " was again forced
upon the attention of all observers of music his-
tory by the incidents of the last Metropolitan
season in New York.
Here it accomplished the work for the man-
agement, which for several years had been per-
formed by the lyric dramas of Wagner ; it saved
the season from financial shipwreck.
Were it not that a spirit of liberality has been
inculcated by the cosmopolitanism of German
opera, the circumstance might have been doub-
ly humiliating to the opera patrons of German
birth.
A German, not a Frenchman, ought to have
written the enduring '' Faust '' opera. That he
did not must be set down either to the credit or
debit of the German character, as one chooses
to think in the premises.
Gounod's " F a u s t " would never have been
possible had he and his librettists felt the rever-
ence for Goethe which the Germans feel. This
reverence was set on the highest ideal that can
present itself to the German musician,—the
composition of incidental music to Goethe's
dramatic poem.
That ideal haunted the uiind of Beethoven in
his declining years, when he was too full of his
last symphony, quartets, and sonatas, to under-
take the commission which Breitkopf and Har-
tel offered him.
It found a realization in part when Schumann
set his " Scenes from Goethe's Faust," portions
of which are almost ineffable in their beauty. It
hovered before the youthful Wagner when he
was struggling for a livelihood in Paris. It has
never deserted, and probably never will desert
the Teutonic imagination.
Gounod's opera has always been a piece of
artistic sacrilege. The Germans could never de-
spoil their literary masterpiece for the sake of
getting out of it the story of intrigue which
sufficed the French authors, and so they have
never forgiven either Gounod or his lovely
score. Their knowledge that Shakespeare and
Racine have fared no better than Goethe at the
hands of conscienceless French librettists has
no balm in it; they do not love Shakespeare
and Racine as they do Goethe.
But they could not close their ears to the ex-
quisite loveliness of Gounod's Garden Scene, or
shut the door of their emotions to the passionate
ecstasy which breathes through the love music.
And while condemning the transformation
which their beloved Gretchen has had to under-
go, and smiling at the metamorphosis of
Goethe's somewhat rude maiden'into the ethe-
real creature which is the joint product of Gou-
nod, Ary Scheffer, and Madame Carvalho, some
of them have even been obliged to admit that
the French Marguerite stands a little higher in
the ethical scale than the German Gretchen.
But if the Germans are grieved in the contem-
plation of the librettos of '' Faust'' and '' Mig-
non," they have no cause to do aught but ad-
mire the composer of the former opera. No
foreign composer has paid a lovelier tribute to
Mozart than Gounod in his little book on '' Don
Giovanni," and none has been more faithful in
spirit to his German models—Mozart, Weber,
and Wagner.
There has been nothing violently revolution-
ary in the influence of Gounod in his own coun-
try, but in all things he has stood for the true,
the beautiful, and the good. He has helped
Wagner break down the barriers of artificial and
unnatural forms in opera; and though he has
never been privileged to enjoy a second success
like that achieved in 1859 with " Faust, " he has
seen his example followed by those who have
shared the national stage with him.
He has been harshly judged ; but even his
severest critic, the irascible Von Bulow himself,
who divides all opera composers into two
classs,—" 1, Those who add to the repertory of
the barrel organ ; and 2, Those who borrow
from the repertory of the barrel organ,"—has
been obliged to yield to him a place in the first
class.
It is a significant fact, apropros of Von Bu-
low's opinion of Gounod, that the opera which
Von Bulow puts down as the finest of Gounod's
creations, is a version of Moliere's comedy - La
THE
Sterling Company,
MANUFACTURERS OF
Pianos and Organs,
FACTORY :
DERBY, CONN.
It is admitted by all that no piano ever put upon the
market has met with such success as THE STERLING
and thousands will testify to their superiority of work-
manship and durability. Why ? Because they are made
just as perfect as a piano can be made.
THE STERLING ORGAN has always taken the lead, and
the improvements made this year puts it far ahead of
all others. J^T" Send for Catalogue.
Hallet & Davis Pianos
Medicin malgre lui," which Gounod composed
while he had " Faust " in hand, and while Di-
rector Carvalho was hestating to produce the
latter opera, because a farce on^the same sub-
ject was occupying the stage of the Theatre
Porte St. Martin.
He chose his profession for love of it; and
while he always felt a strong inclination toward
the church, he has been able to delight his con-
science by devoting a large share of his time to
the composition of church music.
As a pensionnaire of the Institute, he spent
two delighful years in Rome, and visited the
chief cities of Germany on his way back to
Paris. He was admired in the Mendelssohn
household as a young man of twenty-five, and
there probably imbibed that love for the orato-
rio form to which he paid tribute a few years
ago, in the composition of '' The Redemption ''
and ' ' Mors ct J r ita.''
He began his operatic career with "Sappho,"
in 1851, at the Grand'Opera, but won his great-
est laurals with '' Faust,'' at the Theatre Lyr-
ique, for which institution his second-best work
'•'Romeo et Juliette," was also written. Its first
performance took place on April 27, 1867. His
oratorios were composed for the choral festivals
in Birmingham, England, "The Redemption "
in 1882, "Mors etVita " in 1885.—H. E. KREH--
, in Harper's Weekly.
f
HE great baritone, Lassalle, with a congenial
company of fellow artists, among whom
were Dunbar Price, Mrs. Blackstone and one of
the De Reszkes, was one noonday in the sum-
mer time taking breakfast on the veranda of the
Reservoir Hotel at Versailles, when two sad eyed
itinerant Italian musicians came along and be-
gan to play the harp and sing one of Valentine's
songs from " Faust. "
A sigh of dismay broke from the assembled
company, but Lassalle, who was in good humor
with his breakfast and with the world, said,
" Tenez, I'll fix them! " Pushing away his
coffee he arose, and tendering the singer a piece
of silver, said : " My friend, I'll show you how
that should be sung. You do not phrase that
song properly. " Then he burst forth with his
grand voice and sang the song through, to the
great delight of all within range.
The poor traveling musician turned green and
began to tremble with awe, and finally, when
the end came, touched his hat and murmured
humbly, " Merci, mon maitre, I will not sing
again when you may hear." As he slunk off
with his comrade of the harp a shower of laugh-
ter and coin followed him. He was not grateful.
He was stunned.—Irish Times.
THE Edna Piano and Ogan Co., of Monroe-
ville, Ohio, have just issued their annual cata-
logue, and it is full of cuts of their different
styles of organs, with descriptions of them told
in a concise manner. This young firm is rapidly
coming to the front and the Edna Organ is now
heard in many homes throughout the United
States.
__
One of the newspapers in Paris is reported to
be experimenting with type of glass, with grati-
fying results. We may yet be able to see
through those French newspaper jokes.—Yon-
kers Statesman.
CRAND, SQUARE AND UPRICHT.
Indorsed by Liszt, Gottschalk. Wehli. Bendel, Straus, Soro. Abt,
Paulus, Titiens, Heilbron and Germany's Greatest Masters.
Established over Half a Century.
BOSTON, MASS.
Future scanning projects are planned by the International Arcade Museum Library (IAML).