Charles Gounod

Charles François Gounod (Paris, 17 June 1818 – Saint-Cloud, 18 October 1893) was a French composer. The biography of Charles Gounod is characterized by all the characteristic artistic affectations. His moods fluctuated between ambition and despondency, restless activity and crisis, amiability and quarrelsome behavior, marital fidelity and inclination towards extramarital affairs. In his youth he dreamed of becoming a priest and living in monastic seclusion. For a certain period he called himself an abbé and wore a soutane.

Gounod was born in Paris at no. 11 place St-André des Arts, as the second son of an artist couple: his father François-Louis Gounod (1758-1823) was a painter and his mother Victoire Lemachois (1780-1858) an accomplished pianist.
Gounod received his basic education at the lyceum Saint-Louis, where he obtained his diploma in 1835. From his mother he received his first piano lessons. He studied first privately with Antonín Rejcha and from 1836 at the Conservatoire national supérieur de musique in Paris with, among others, Jacques Fromental Halévy (fugue and counterpoint), Jean-François Lesueur (composition), Ferdinando Paër, Luigi Cherubini and Pierre Zimmermann. In 1839 he won the Prix de Rome with his cantata Fernand and with it a three-year journey to Rome, where he lived in the Villa Medici.