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Gounod Charles
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"Ave Maria" for flute and piano
"Ave Maria" for flute and piano
Charles Gounod: "Ave Maria" for flute and piano, also known as "Bach-Gounod Ave Maria" was written in 1852 when Gounod improvised the melody over Bach's Prelude No. 1 in C major (from The Well-Tempered Clavier, 1722) while at the home of his fiancée, Anna Zimmermann. Gounod’s future father-in-law, Pierre-Joseph-Guillaume Zimmermann, overheard him playing and was so moved that Charles immediately transcribed the melody into musical notation. A few days after its improvisation in 1852, it was performed at a house concert organized by Zimmermann for violin, piano, and a small choir.
The first documented public performance occurred on April 10, 1853. It was first published the same year as "Méditation sur le Premier Prélude de Piano de S. Bach."
In 1859, Charles Gounod presented a manuscript of his famous melody, which was not titled "Ave Maria" yet, to his piano student Rosalie Jousset. By the time Gounod paired it with a poem by Alphonse de Lamartine, "Vers écrits sur un album" (Lines written in an album). The lyrics were romantic and melancholic, beginning with the lines: "The book of life is the supreme book that one can neither close nor open again at one's will..."
When Rosalie showed the gift to her mother-in-law, Aurélie Jousset, the elder woman was furious. At the time, Gounod had a reputation as a "ladies' man" and a flirt. Madame Jousset felt the romantic poem was an inappropriate and overly intimate sentiment from a teacher to a young married woman.
To defuse the situation and "purify" the music, Madame Jousset suggested that the melody was better suited to the sacred text of the Ave Maria. Gounod agreed to the change, and this "sanitized" version was published shortly thereafter, becoming an international sensation.
The original manuscript gifted to Rosalie Jousset, containing the romantic Lamartine poem, is still preserved in the Bibliothèque nationale de France (BnF) as a testament to the work's secular beginnings.
Gounod Charles
Charles Gounod (1818–1893) was a central figure in 19th-century French music, best known for his lyrical operas and sacred compositions that defined the "French school" of his era.
Born in Paris, he studied at the Conservatoire de Paris with Fromental Halévy. In 1839, he won the prestigious Prix de Rome. During his time in Italy, he was deeply moved by 16th-century polyphony (notably Palestrina). Upon his return to France, he seriously considered entering the priesthood and even enrolled as a guest at the Séminaire de Saint-Sulpice in 1847 to study for the priesthood. During this time, he wore ecclesiastical dress (a cassock) and signed his name as "Abbé Gounod".
By 1848, he realized he could not commit to a life of celibacy and left the seminary to pursue a career in the theater, though the nickname lingered as a reflection of his persistent spiritual interests. By 1859, the year he presented the Bach-based melody gift to his student Rosalie Jousset, Gounod’s public image had shifted toward that of a charismatic, romantic artist. Gounod was known as a brilliant conversationalist with a magnetic personality that particularly attracted women in the Parisian salons. His marriage to Anna Zimmermann in 1852 was frequently strained by rumors of his intense "spiritual" yet arguably romantic attachments to other women, such as the singer Pauline Viardot.
Gounod’s greatest fame came from his ability to blend French elegance with theatrical drama. In 1859 hi finished his opera "Faust", based on Goethe’s play. It became one of the most frequently performed operas in history and solidified his international reputation. In 1867, he wrote another masterpiece, the opera "Roméo et Juliette". Despite his success in France, he had to move to London (1870) due to the Franco-Prussian War. There, he became the first conductor of the Royal Choral Society.
In his final decades, he returned almost exclusively to religious music, composing works such as the Messe solennelle de Sainte-Cécile and the oratorio La Rédemption.