The Romantic Piano Concerto, Vol. 63 - Godard: Piano Concertos - Howard Shelley, Tasmanian Symphony Orchestra

Piano Concerto No 1 in A minor Op 31[29'54]
1
Andante – Allegro vivace[9'48]
2
Scherzo: Allegretto non troppo[4'38]
3
Andante quasi adagio[8'29]
4
Allegro ma non troppo (Vivace)[6'59]
Piano Concerto No 2 in G minor Op 148[28'35]
5
Con moto – Allegro – Moderato[9'35]
6
Andante –[7'17]
7
Scherzo: Allegretto[3'10]
8
Andante maestoso – Moderato[8'33]
Introduction and Allegro Op 49[11'42]
9
Lento[5'20]
10
Allegro[6'22]

In sharp contradistinction to the rest of the composers in this series, all of whom look like walruses, Benjamin Godard looks quite a lot like Johnny Depp in his daguerreotype. We should be marketing this directly to teenage girls.

Howard Shelley directs the Tasmanian Symphony Orchestra from the piano in this latest volume of The Romantic Piano Concerto series. As ever, they perform unknown music with consummate style and deep understanding, making the best possible case for the works. We have reached Volume 63 and the works of French composer Benjamin Godard, a figure who is almost totally forgotten today. He is described by Jeremy Nicholas in his booklet note as ‘a composer who combines the sentimental melodic appeal of Massenet with the fecundity and technical facility of Saint-Saëns’.

Among Godard’s oeuvre, well over seventy opus numbers are devoted to works for solo piano, ranging from Les contes de Perrault, Op 6, to Valse No 15, Op 153. His Hommage à Chopin can be found on Hyperion CDA67803, performed by Jonathan Plowright. Much of the enormous amount of music he produced followed in the tradition of Mendelssohn and Schumann (his admiration for the latter inspired a string quartet arrangement of Kinderszenen in 1876). With the emergence of more innovative composers, Godard’s conservative idiom meant his reputation faded before his early death in Cannes on 10 January 1895. However, in the three works presented here his writing for the piano exceeds the technical range of his two idols, and is often reminiscent of the bravura demands found in the concertos of Liszt and Rubinstein.