D’un coeur qui t’aime (1882)

A pious text, a devout vocal line, a rippling harp-like accompaniment - just typical, the Gounod sceptic might well observe. If the first two parts of this setting of words from Racine’s Athalie seem not entirely unpredictable, as each of the voices in turn expresseses her or his selfless devotion to the “supreme will,” from the point where the two voices join together, to coax the harmonies back to the tonic, the sound is ever more enchanting. The final section is not so much a third statement of a pious sentiment as a ravishingly sensuous mingling of voices and, towards the end, of piano melody too… Gounod’s choral setting of the same words, written about thirty years earlier in 1850, is a very different experience.

Fleur des bois (1872)

For those who associate Gounod with sentimental religiosity D’un coeur qui t’aime might seem at first sight just too typical – a pious text, a devout vocal line, a rippling harp-like accompaniment. In fact, the first two parts of this setting of words from Racine’s Athalie , as each of the voices in turn expresses selfless devotion to the “supreme will”, are not entirely unpredictable. But from the point where the two voices join together, to coax the harmonies back to the tonic, the sound is ever more enchanting. The final section is not so much a third statement of a pious sentiment as a ravishingly sensuous mingling of voices and, towards the end, of piano melody too. Fleur des bois , which would not be stylistically out of place in operetta, is a quite different and delightfully trivial experience.