Charles Gounod

Born in Paris on 17 June 1818 into an artistic family, Gounod studied at the Conservatoire and won the Prix de Rome, which sent him to Italy, Austria, and Prussia, where he met Mendelssohn and absorbed Bach. Deeply religious, he briefly considered the priesthood after returning to Paris, then composed prolifically - church music, songs, orchestral works, operas. Faust in 1859 made him; Roméo et Juliette in 1867 kept him there. The Franco-Prussian War scattered him: he fled to England in 1870, sent his family home in 1871, but stayed in London under the roof - and the control - of Georgina Weldon, an amateur singer, for nearly three years before breaking free and returning to France. By then younger composers had moved past him; he remained respected but old-fashioned, operatic success gone. He died at his house in Saint-Cloud on 18 October 1893, age seventy-five, his influence on Massenet and Fauré outlasting his fame.