GOUNOD AS A BOY

Manawatu Times, Volume LIII, Issue 6757, 9 November 1928, Page 3

GOUNOD AS A BOY

When Gounod was six he was taken to the opera, nearly perishing with excitement. He could neither eat nor drink. The mother said:

“You know if you do not eat you do not go to the theatre.’’ “Before such a threat,’’ wrote Gounod, “I woiild have heroically swallowed anything they could put before me. 1 dined, therefore, with exemplary obedience, and .... there we were, mother and I, starting out for the promised land. It seemed as if I was about to enter a sanctuary

.... I was filled with a sort of sacred terror, as at the approach of some mystery, imposing and redoubtable. I experienced emotions as profound as they were unknown; the desire and fear of that which was to pass before me.” The boy was obviously so stirred by this experience that his mother, who did not wish him to study music, was uneasy. She went to Gounod’s school and asked the professor .... to “ get that musical idea exit of his head.”

“Aha! little Charles,” said the professor next day, “so you wish to become a musician t” “Yes.”

“Ah! but you do not think what it means! To be a musician amounts to nothing in the world.” “Nothing'” sard the child, astonished, “Is it nothing to be a Mozart, Weber, Meyerbeer, Rossini?” “Peste! moil garcou! But at your ago Mozart had done some great things. What have you done? What can you do? Here! show me what you can do”—as ho scribbled on a piece of paper the words of the roriiance of Joseph from Mchul’s opera, then famous, of that name. “Put music to that,” said the professor. “See if you can do as well as Mehul. As for Mozart —there is still time.”

The song was written during the recreation period. Gounod took it to the principal. “What it is, my child I” “My song is finished.” ‘ ‘ What already ? ” ■ “Yes, six’.” * “Let us see. Sing it to me.” “I sang,” says Gounod in his memoirs, “and when I had finished I turned timidly about to ( face my judge. His eyes were full of tears. He drew mo to his heart and said, It is beautiful, beautiful, my boy. .... Bo a musician, .. It’s no use to fight against that!’” —From “The Lure of Music,” by Olin Downes.