Benjamin Godard: Introduction and Allegro, Op.49

Benjamin Godard, c. 1880, Bibliothèque nationale de France

 

Benjamin Louis Paul Godard (18 August 1849 – 10 January 1895) was a French violinist and Romantic-era composer of Jewish extraction.[1] Godard composed eight operas, five symphonies, two piano and two violin concertos, string quartets, sonatas for violin and piano, piano pieces and etudes, and more than a hundred songs. He is best known for his opera Jocelyn. He died at the age of 45 in Cannes (Alpes-Maritimes) of tuberculosis and was buried in the family tomb in Taverny in the French department of Val-d'Oise

[바이올린의 신동이었던 그는 작곡을 공부했으며 청년시절에 교향곡·실내악곡·협주곡·피아노곡을 작곡했다. 걸작 오페라 〈조슬랭 Jocelyn〉(1881) 중 〈자장가〉는 널리 알려진 곡이다. 그밖에 오페라 〈살라메아의 페드로 Pedro de Zalamea〉(1884)·〈병영의 매점 La Vivandiere〉(1895)·〈전설교향곡 Symphonie Legendaire〉 작품 100(1886)이 있다. 고다르의 음악은 여리고 감상적이며 절정기의 작품은 쇼팽과 슈만의 음악과 비슷하다.

 

Introduction and Allegro, Op.49

Victor Sangiorgio (piano), Royal Scottish National Orchestra, Martin Yates (conductor)

I. Lento. — 00:00​ II. Allegro. Qausi Cadenza - Allegro –05:33

 

Born in Paris in 1849, Benjamin Godard showed a musical talent so precocious that he was able to enter the Conservatoire at the age of ten. There he studied composition with Henri Reber, also having violin lessons from Henri Vieuxtemps; but though his exceptional fluency won him wide admiration, he did not gain a prize as a violinist, nor were his composition entries for the Prix de Rome in 1863 and 1864 successful. However, he began to make a name as a performer and composer of charm, abroad as well as in France, and was soon being hailed as a new Mozart. Such false expectations were no help to his career. Even comparisons with Mendelssohn, though Godard too was of Jewish extraction, were out of place, even if a Mendelssohnian fluency and versatility enabled him to compose effectively in almost all musical genres. Apart from eight operas (whose subjects include Dante and Joan of Arc), his long work list includes symphonies, concertos, trios, three string quartets, many sonatas with violin and over a hundred piano pieces and at least as many songs. The Introduction et Allegro, Op.49 belongs to 1880, and is a brilliant showpiece for the piano. A somewhat mysterious orchestral introduction presents a simple melody accompanied by highly chromatic harmony over a pedal bass, to which the piano presently adds elaborate decorations, with rich arpeggios and flourishes as it increasingly assumes the central role. With the Allegro, the orchestra delivers an abrupt four-note figure, shortly repeated a note higher as if the piano, busy with cadenzas, had taken insufficient notice of it. Only on a third repetition does the Allegro proper set off, and the ensuing movement is a kind of free rondo on the theme, with other fragments of melody providing diversions. The chromaticism of the opening Introduction section is not entirely lost, but it is on forceful, decisive chords that the work comes to a close. (from album notes by John Warrack, 2011)