GOUNOD Charles (1818-1893)

MUSICAL MANUSCRIPT autographed "Ch. Gounod," Beware!, 1870; title and 2 folio pages on a bifeuillet. Melody in English for voice and piano. Beware! [CG 338] is the first melody composed by Gounod after having taken refuge in London. It is signed and dated on the title page of November 1870: " Music by Ch. Gounod. 9ber /70. London ". The lyrics are by Henry Wadsworth LONGFELLOW : " I know a maiden fair to see "..., extracted from Voices of the Night ; Gounod retained the first three of the five stanzas, warning against the seductive attractions of a femme fatale. "The first verses are from the seduced man, the last ones from the distrustful man", wrote Gounod to Georgina Weldon on April 24, 1871. For the French edition, the translation of Jules Barbier bears the title Prends garde ! In E major, in 2/4, the melody is marked Allegretto ; it counts 69 measures. The manuscript is carefully written in brown ink on Lard-Esnault paper with 26 lines, with a few corrections by scratching. This "song" was published in 1871 by Novello; the Musical Times praised "the pertinence of the light introduction, the independence of the piano figures which enliven the vocal line, the good effect of the numerous silences and triplets of the last stanza" (see the excellent commentary by Gérard Condé, Charles Gounod, Fayard, 2009, p. 646-647).