M. GOUNOD'S MASTERPIECE.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XX, Issue 6829, 6 October 1883, Page 2 (Supplement)

M. GOUNOD'S MASTERPIECE.

The Boston Herald published a conversation ihat its Parisian correspondent, Captain ffaynie, is said to have had with M. Gounod, j The master, after having reminded the American journalist that he had just entered | his sixty-fifth year, snd that it would be difficult for him to accept the numerous invitations he had received to visit the United States, adds :—"I shall write no more for the stage. The work which yon see on my piano bureau, on which I am at present engaged, will be one of the most important that I have composed. lam preparing it for the next triennial festival at Birmingham. It is an oratorio with a requiem. The subject is 'Death and Life.' The first part is composed of motives taken from the ' Hesse des Morts,' and in the second part, which is no other than the description of the Heavenly Jerusalem of the Apocalypse of St. John, I repeat the themes that you know, but ivith developments expressing the joy of the saved in the New Jerusalem of the saints. It is a subject that I have long thought af; I am now working at it very seriously, and it interests me more every day. In my opinion it isjn religious ideas and sentiments that music, finds its noblest and highest forms. You will find - a religious thread running through all my operas and works of any importance—for instance, the cathedral seen® in 'Faust,' and 'Polyeacte,' which is absolutely religious opera. It is rather because of this feeling that I had given up writing for the theatre."