Petite Symphonie

Charles Gounod was born in Paris in 1818 into an artistic family. His father was a painter and his mother a pianist and daughter of a professor of piano at the Conservatoire. It was his mother who gave him his first piano lessons. He entered the Conservatoire in 1836 and won the Grand Prix de Rome in 1839. At one stage in his life, when organist and choirmaster at a church in Paris, he became interested in the priesthood, but this phase passed, and he married in 1864. From 1870 - 1875 he lived in England and founded what is now known as The Royal Choral Society.
The Petite Symphonie was written in 1885 and is full of glorious melodies. Because it is scored for nine wind instruments (flute, 2 oboes, 2 clarinets, 2 bassoons, 2 horns) it is not performed as often as it deserves, and it is for this reason that Emerson Edition has published this edition, arranged for wind quintet by Jane Whalley.