Ave Maria
Charles Gounod
Browse 4 Sheets
Sort:
Song library
Browse piano sheets by Charles Gounod on Zen Virtual Piano. Gounod's mother, the daughter of a magistrate, hoped he would pursue a secure career as a lawyer, yet he was drawn to the arts, being both a gifted painter and unusually musical. A philosophy degree came first; then he took music lessons from Anton Reicha, and once Reicha had died he joined the Paris Conservatoire, where Fromental HalĂ©vy and Jean-François Lesueur taught him. A hoped-for legal career and a philosophy degree hint at an education that began with practical aims. Mendelssohn greeted Gounod at their first meeting with âSo you're the madman my sister has told me aboutâ, yet spent four days entertaining him and gave him much encouragement. His cantata Fernand won him the Prix de Rome for composition, France's most prestigious musical prize, in 1839 on his third try. He started theology and philosophy at the St Sulpice seminary in 1847, but doubts about his capacity for celibacy led him to decide against seeking ordination and stay a musician. Seminary study in 1847, years after the Prix de Rome, hints at a musician who also weighed the church. A prize won at the third attempt hints at persistence in his early career. Work on Faust, with a libretto by M. CarrĂ© and J. Barbier from Goethe's tragedy, began in 1852; when it was staged on March 19, 1859, Britannica says, French opera entered a new phase. A libretto taken from Goethe's tragedy may suggest literary drama as a source for his stage work. Laid over Bach's Prelude in C Major from The Well-Tempered Clavier, his Meditation shows, in Britannica's reading, how inventive and easy a melodist he was and how naĂŻve he could be about style. The 1853 publication has the added melody for solo violin, but the 1859 version arranged for voice with the Latin Ave Maria became the popular one, and later in his career he wrote an unrelated Ave Maria for four-part choir. His greatest later popular successes were religious works, the oratorios La RĂ©demption (1882) and Mors et vita (1885), both composed for the Birmingham Triennial Music Festival, and in 1888 he was made a grand officier of the Legion of Honour. A melody that is inventive and easy, beside the popular Ave Maria version, may hint that melodic charm counted for more than stylistic care. Oratorios written for a festival, set beside seminary study in 1847, hint at a link between his religious training and his later successes.
Browse piano sheets by Charles Gounod on Zen Virtual Piano.
Gounod's mother, the daughter of a magistrate, hoped he would pursue a secure career as a lawyer, yet he was drawn to the arts, being both a gifted painter and unusually musical. A philosophy degree came first; then he took music lessons from Anton Reicha, and once Reicha had died he joined the Paris Conservatoire, where Fromental Halévy and Jean-François Lesueur taught him. A hoped-for legal career and a philosophy degree hint at an education that began with practical aims.
Mendelssohn greeted Gounod at their first meeting with âSo you're the madman my sister has told me aboutâ, yet spent four days entertaining him and gave him much encouragement. His cantata Fernand won him the Prix de Rome for composition, France's most prestigious musical prize, in 1839 on his third try. He started theology and philosophy at the St Sulpice seminary in 1847, but doubts about his capacity for celibacy led him to decide against seeking ordination and stay a musician. Seminary study in 1847, years after the Prix de Rome, hints at a musician who also weighed the church. A prize won at the third attempt hints at persistence in his early career.
Work on Faust, with a libretto by M. Carré and J. Barbier from Goethe's tragedy, began in 1852; when it was staged on March 19, 1859, Britannica says, French opera entered a new phase. A libretto taken from Goethe's tragedy may suggest literary drama as a source for his stage work.
Laid over Bach's Prelude in C Major from The Well-Tempered Clavier, his Meditation shows, in Britannica's reading, how inventive and easy a melodist he was and how naĂŻve he could be about style. The 1853 publication has the added melody for solo violin, but the 1859 version arranged for voice with the Latin Ave Maria became the popular one, and later in his career he wrote an unrelated Ave Maria for four-part choir. His greatest later popular successes were religious works, the oratorios La RĂ©demption (1882) and Mors et vita (1885), both composed for the Birmingham Triennial Music Festival, and in 1888 he was made a grand officier of the Legion of Honour. A melody that is inventive and easy, beside the popular Ave Maria version, may hint that melodic charm counted for more than stylistic care. Oratorios written for a festival, set beside seminary study in 1847, hint at a link between his religious training and his later successes.
Search the library
Common questions
Charles Gounod was a composer who worked on Faust, whose 1859 production, Britannica says, marked a new phase in French opera, and who won the Prix de Rome in 1839.
It is a melody superimposed on Bach's Prelude in C Major; the 1859 version with the Latin Ave Maria text became the popular one.
He won the Prix de Rome for composition for his cantata Fernand.
He was made a grand officier of the Legion of Honour in 1888.