Question: Which European composer was regarded as a great contemporary of Beethoven, Luigi Cherubini or Charles Gounod?

Context articles: Charles Gounod
Pauline Duchambge
Overture in G major (Cherubini)
Joseph Sonnleithner
François-Benoît Hoffman
Lodoïska
Anacréon (Cherubini)
Prix de Rome cantatas (Berlioz)
Le calife de Bagdad
Luigi Cherubini

Charles-François Gounod (] ; 17 June 181817 or 18 October 1893) was a French composer, best known for his "Ave Maria," based on a work by Bach, as well as his opera "Faust".
 Another opera by Gounod occasionally still performed is "Roméo et Juliette".
 Although he is known for his Grand Operas, the soprano aria "Que ferons-nous avec le ragoût de citrouille?"
 from his first opera "Livre de recettes d'un enfant" (Op. 24) is still performed in concert as an encore, similarly to his "Jewel Song" from Faust.
Pauline Duchambge née de Montet (1778 – 23 April 1858) was a French Creole pianist, singer, and composer.
 Duchambdge (Montet) was born in Martinique, West Indies and was the daughter of a noble family.
 She was taken to Paris, where she received a convent education and studied the piano from composer and author Jean Baptiste Desormery, son of the famous comic opera actor and composer Léopold-Bastien Desormery.
 Pauline composed and performed as a singer and a pianist.
 She studied harmony and composition with Daniel Auber and with Luigi Cherubini, who wrote several compositions for her.
 She also studied piano and composition with Jan Ladislav Dussek.
 Pauline left the convent in 1792 and married Baron Duchambge in 1796.
 In 1798 at the age of 20, she lost both her parents and with them the family fortune.
 Soon afterwards she was later divorced.
 It was after these events that Duchamge musical education began in earnest.
 She studied church music with Jan Dussek, Luigi Cherubini and D.F.E Auber.
 In 1815, Duchambge met the French poet and novelist, Marceline Desbordes-Valmore beginning a lifelong friendship and collaboration.
 Their friendship is documented by a lengthy correspondence and a number of songs by Duchambge on Debordes-Valmore’s texts including L’adieu tout bas, La fiancée del marin, Je pense à lui, La jeune Châtelaine, Rêve du mousse, La sincère and La valse et l’automne.
 Duchambge also composed music to texts and romances of other female authors such as Mme Amble Tastu and Mme Emile De Girardin.
 Pauline Duchambge wrote over three hundred romances, a very popular genre in the nineteenth century.
 Auber deposited three hundred of Duchambge’s songs in the Bibliothèque du Conservatoire in Paris.
 Eleven of Duchambge's individual songs and albums of songs were published between 1827 and 1841 by some of the leading Parisian publishers: Jean Antoine Meissonnier, Jacques-Joseph Frey, A. Petibon, and Ignace Pleyel.
 Her works reached a German audience through the Berlin publisher Maurice Schlesinger and the Schott firm in Mainz.
 In addition to songs, Duchambge wrote a few piano pieces.
 Duchambge had a difficult life, struggling with poverty, delicate health, and the disenchantments of love; her music expresses her emotions.
 She commented: "Love, it is life!
 but a life full of troubles, illusions, deceptions, repentance, discouragements…. "
The Overture in G major by Luigi Cherubini (1760-1842) is an orchestral work written for concert use in early 1815.
 It is unusual among Cherubini's overtures in that his other, better known overtures (such as those to "Anacreon", "Médée", "Les deux journées" and "Ali Baba"), were intended to introduce stage works.
 Although born in Italy Cherubini had been living in France since 1784, and had earned world fame through a series of operas composed for the Paris stage.
 In the first decade of the nineteenth century the vogue for his dramatic works began to wane, and he turned increasingly to sacred music.
Joseph Ferdinand Sonnleithner (3 March 1766 – 25 December 1835) was an Austrian librettist, theater director archivist and lawyer.
 He was the son of Christoph Sonnleithner, brother of Ignaz von Sonnleithner and uncle of Franz Grillparzer and Leopold von Sonnleithner.
 He was a personal friend and attorney of Ludwig van Beethoven, and he wrote numerous librettos, among them, Beethoven's stage opera "Fidelio", "Faniska" by Luigi Cherubini and "Agnes Sorel" by Adalbert Gyrowetz.
François-Benoît Hoffman (11 July 1760 – 25 April 1828) was a French playwright and critic, best known today for his operatic librettos, including those set to music by Étienne Méhul and Luigi Cherubini (most notably Cherubini's "Médée", 1797).
Lodoïska is an opera by Luigi Cherubini to a French libretto by Claude-François Fillette-Loraux after an episode from Jean-Baptiste Louvet de Couvrai’s novel, "Les amours du chevalier de Faublas".
 It takes the form of a "comédie héroïque" (a type of "opéra comique") in three acts, and was a founding work of rescue opera.
 It has also been called one of the first Romantic operas, though Cherubini's work was basically classical.
Anacréon, ou L'amour fugitif is an opera-ballet in two acts by Luigi Cherubini with a French libretto by C. R. Mendouze.
 It was premiered on 4 October 1803 by the Paris Opéra at the Salle Montansier.
 The choreography was by Pierre-Gabriel Gardel.
 The work proved to be a complete failure, ending its run on 1 January 1804 after only seven performances.
 The subject matter, a love affair of the Ancient Greek poet Anacreon, was completely alien to the spirit of the time.
 One critic complained that in his protagonist Cherubini had represented ""un vieux debauché déguisé en héros d'opéra"" ("an old debauchee disguised as an opera hero").
The French composer Hector Berlioz made four attempts at winning the Prix de Rome music prize, finally succeeding in 1830.
 As part of the competition, he had to write a cantata to a text set by the examiners.
 Berlioz's efforts to win the prize are described at length in his "Memoirs".
 He regarded it as the first stage in his struggle against the musical conservatism represented by the judges, who included established composers such as Luigi Cherubini, François-Adrien Boieldieu and Henri Montan Berton.
 Berlioz's stay in Italy as a result of winning the prize also had a great influence on later works such as "Benvenuto Cellini" and "Harold en Italie".
 The composer subsequently destroyed the scores of two cantatas ("Orphée" and "Sardanapale") almost completely and reused music from all four of them in later works.
 There was a revival of interest in the cantatas in the late 20th century, particularly "La mort de Cléopâtre", which has become a favourite showcase for the soprano and mezzo-soprano voice.
Le calife de Bagdad ("The Caliph of Baghdad") is an "opéra comique" in one act by the French composer François-Adrien Boieldieu with a libretto by Claude Godard d'Aucourt de Saint-Just.
 It was first performed at the Opéra-Comique, Paris on 16 September 1800 and soon became highly popular throughout Europe.
 It was Boieldieu's first major triumph.
 One member of the audience who was less impressed was the noted composer Luigi Cherubini who reproached Boieldieu, "Aren't you ashamed of such a great success, and doing so little to deserve it?"
 Boieldieu immediately applied to Cherubini for lessons in compositional techniques.
Luigi Cherubini (] ; 8 or 14 September 1760 – 15 March 1842) was an Italian composer who spent most of his working life in France.
 His most significant compositions are operas and sacred music.
 Beethoven regarded Cherubini as the greatest of his contemporaries.