Charles Gounod (1818-1893) composed several hundred sacred solo songs, including his 1852 setting of the Catholic hymn Ave Maria with a long-breathed melody added atop the first Prelude from Bach's Well-Tempered Clavier. Forty years later, after a lifetime spent as a composer of operas, oratorios, and masses, Gounod, a devoutly religious albeit also a deeply sinful man, composed in April 1893 his last sacred song, his last work for voice and orchestra, and one of his last pieces altogether. Known as Repentir, Gounod wrote both the words and the music. Unpublished and unperformed while Gounod lived, the work was first published in the French literary magazine La Revue de Paris in an arrangement for voice and piano by M. Paladilhe. Repentir, subtitled "Scene sous forme de priere" (Scene in the form of a prayer), has all the characteristics of Gounod's best music: simplicity, clarity, and taste, but it also has a depth of feeling and a directness of expression that have made Repentir one of the most popular of late Romantic French religious songs for orchestra.

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