This severe, ascetic music, calm and horizontal as the line of the ocean, monotonous by virtue of its serenity, anti-sensuous, and yet so intense in …

- Charles Gounod

If all the music written since Bach's time should be lost, it could be reconstructed on the foundation which Bach laid.

- Charles Gounod

My opinion changes rapidly - one minute I can think it is very good and the next time I look at it, I see all the flaws and weaknesses therein.

- Charles Gounod

Mozart, prodigal heaven gave thee everything, grace and strength, abundance and moderation, perfect equilibrium.

- Charles Gounod

Who has reached the extreme limits of scale with the same infallible precision, equally guarded against the false refinement of artificial elegance a…

- Charles Gounod

Bach is a colossus of Rhodes, beneath whom all musicians pass and will continue to pass. Mozart is the most beautiful, Rossini the most brilliant, bu…

- Charles Gounod

Before Mozart, all ambition turns to despair.

- Charles Gounod

Musical ideas sprang to my mind like a flight of butterflies, and all I had to do was to stretch out my hand to catch them

- Charles Gounod