"Le Medecin malgre lui"
(1858); "Faust," his greatest work, and one of the most successful of
modern operas (1859); "Philemon et Baucis" (1860); "Reine de Saba"
(1862); "Mireille" (1864); "La Colombe" (1866); "Romeo et Juliette"
(1867); "Cinq Mars" (1877), and "Polyeucte" (1878). Notwithstanding the
attention he gave to opera and to much other secular music, he found
ample time for the composition of sacred works. In 1852, while in Paris,
he became conductor of the Orpheon, and for the pupils of that
institution he composed two masses. He has also written a great number of
pieces for choir use which are very popular, and deservedly so,
particularly the beautiful song "Nazareth." Among his larger works are a
"Stabat Mater," with orchestral accompaniment; the oratorio "Tobie;" a
"De Profundis" and an "Ave Verum;" and the two oratorios, "The
Redemption," performed at Birmingham in 1882, and "Mors et Vita," brought
out at the same place in 1885. The composer is now engaged upon the
scheme of a new oratorio, the career of Joan of Arc being its subject. It
may be said in closing this sketch, which has been mainly confined to a
consideration of his sacred compositions, as his operatic career has been
fully treated in "Standard Operas," that in 1873 he wrote the incidental
music to Jules Barbier's tragedy, "Jeanne d'Arc," which may have inspired
his determination to write an oratorio on the same subject.

The Redemption.

"The Redemption, a Sacred Trilogy," is the title which Gounod gave to
this work, and on its opening page he wrote: "The work of my life." In a
note appended to his description of its contents he says:--

"It was during the autumn of the year 1867 that I first thought of
composing a musical work on the Redemption. I wrote the words at Rome,
where I passed two months of the winter 1867-68 with my friend Hebert,
the celebrated painter, at that time director of the Academy of France.
Of the music I then composed only two fragments: first, 'The March to
Calvary' in its entirety; second, the opening of the first division of
the third part, 'The Pentecost.' Twelve years afterwards I finished the
work, which had so long been interrupted, with a view to its being
performed at the festival at Birmingham in 1882."

It was brought out, as he contemplated, in August of that year, and the
production was a memorable one. It was first heard in this country in the
wint