" These three lines are all that the Petit Larousse, a well-known French Dictionary,
tells us about one of the greatest French composers. Even with a web search, one notices that there is no real information about this great man. In order to repair this injustice, in 1997 we decided to create this site, which is completely dedicated to him. As Charles Gounod's great-great-great grandson, and having mastered a minimum of the torments of the Internet network and Mac, I owe it to all of you who want to discover or rediscover the man who, just to mention it, created Faust, for a long time the most performed opera that the world has known, even though it was in competition with its much more publicized “colleagues.”
You will discover on this site a complete biography which includes unpublished documents, a list of Gound’s more than six hundred works, a discography and bibliography, conferences and letters, all illustrated with numerous photographic documents, etchings and paintings. Do not expect, however, to find herein a plethora multimedia effects. I prefer to privilege ease of use, and to allow those who do not necessarily have the last version of various navigators, or huge memories, to have easy access to all the information and pages of this site.
I wish to thank the Municipal Museum of Saint-Cloud; its beautiful catalog, published for the centenary of Gounod's death, was most useful to me. I especially thank my late grandfather Jean-Pierre Gounod for his encouragement and for the numerous documents he provided to me. Without his help, this site would not have been as complete. And now, dive into the information, enjoy, and do not hesitate to contact me if you wish more info or simply if you have comments about the site. "
