Charles-François Gounod (17 Jun 1818–18 Oct 1893) was a French romantic composer known for sacred (e.g., "Ave Maria") as well as secular works (e.g., operas "Faust" and "Roméo et Juliette"). Born in Paris, Gounod was the son of an artist father and a pianist mother, who was his first teacher. He attended the Paris Conservatoire, and at age nineteen, won the Prix de Rome for his cantata "Fernand," allowing him a stay in Italy, where Gounod studied the music of Palestrina and other sacred works of the sixteenth century. In his early 30’s Gounod studied to become a priest, but changed his mind and returned to composition. Still a devout Catholic, he had an image of the face of Jesus carved on his piano a music-rack. 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. "O Divine Redeemer" is one of Gounod’s final compositions; originally scored for mezzo-soprano and orchestra, it was published posthumously, in 1894. [Source: Wikipedia]