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.

In 1893 shortly after he had put the finishing touches to a requiem written for his grandson he died of a stroke in Saint-Cloud France. He became the first conductor of what is now the Royal Choral Society. He was following his father; François-Louis Gounod (d.

Another opera by Gounod is Roméo et Juliette. Charles-François Gounod (French pronunciation: ​[ʃaʁl fʁɑ̃swa ɡuno]; 17 June 1818 – 17 October or 18 October 1893) was a French composer most well known for his Ave Maria (based on a work by Bach) as well as his opera Faust.