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GODARD, B.: Piano Works, Vol. 2 (E. Reyes)
Though he died in his mid-forties Benjamin Godard, a child prodigy who had entered the Paris Conservatoire at the age of ten, wrote prolifically in almost all genres. Stylistically he adhered to models such as Schumann and Chopin rather than aligning himself with Wagner. Spanning the breadth of Godard’s compositional career, this recording draws together a broad selection of piano works from the relatively early Trois Fragments Poétiques, Op.13, with their long-spun lyrical melodies, to later works such as the Fantaisie which demonstrates his more virtuosic side. Composed across two decades, the Nocturnes from the early 1890s are sometimes spiced with unusual harmonies and balance perfectly the differing demands of the salon and the concert hall.
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The Belgian pianist Eliane Reyes received her early training from her mother and gave her first concert at the age of five. She was a laureate of the Cziffra Competition at Senlis when she was ten and in the same year played a Haydn concerto at the Tibor Varga Festival.
She studied at the Brussels Conservatoire Royal, Berlin Hochschule des Künste, Salzburg Mozarteum and the Paris Conservatoire National Supérieur and has gone on to a concert career that has taken her to North America and the Far East, as well as throughout Europe, with appearances in leading concert halls and at major festivals.
Her recordings have brought various awards and honours, including nomination in 2012 and 2015 in the solo category of the International Classical Music Awards and in 2013 in the contemporary music category for her recording of piano works by Nicolas Bacri [Naxos 8.572530].
She is professor of piano at the Brussels Conservatoire Royal de Musique and a frequent member of international competition juries.
A violist and pupil of Henri Vieuxtemps, the French composer Benjamin Louis Paul Godard won a precociously early reputation as a composer of salon music, with a series of pieces that would once have found a ready place in any album of piano music. His other music, influenced by contemporary German trends, is more substantial, if neglected.
Operas
Godard is chiefly remembered for his operas. Les bijoux de Jeanette, his first opera, was produced in 1878, followed by Pedro de Zalamea in 1884 and Jocelyn in 1888. The Berceuse from Jocelyn proved its most popular element and has been arranged for numerous combinations of instruments and voices. Other operas were unsuccessful, although his final comic opera La vivandière, left incomplete at his death, seemed to promise more.
Orchestral Music
The four published symphonies of Godard include a Symphonie gothique and a Symphonie orientale, while his concertos consist of two Piano Concertos and two Violin Concertos, the first a Concert romantique. Other works include orchestral arrangement of the piano Scènes italiennes and Scènes écossaises.
Chamber Music
Godard wrote five Violin Sonatas and a series of other pieces for violin and piano and other ensembles.
Piano Music
Much of Godard’s piano music is in the form of salon pieces of no great pretensions, designed for a lucrative popular market.
