Benjamin Godard - Piano Concerto No. 2; etc. (Victor Sangiorgio; Martin Yates)

Information

Composer: Benjamin Godard

• Les Guelfes, Op. 70: Overture
• Piano Concerto No. 2 in G minor, Op. 148
• Fantaisie persane, Op. 152
• Jocelyn, opera, Op. 100 - Suites Nos. 1 & 2

Victor Sangiorgio, piano

Royal Scottish National Orchestra

Martin Yates, conductor

Date: 2012

Label: Dutton

https://www.duttonvocalion.co.uk/proddetail.php?prod=CDLX7291

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Review

As on the earlier Dutton disc of Godard’s music (11/11), none of these world premiere recordings are of forgotten masterpieces but they consistently show the hand of an assured craftsman, a fecund melodist full of arresting ideas albeit in a harmonically conservative idiom. The curtain-raiser is a case in point: the Overture to Godard’s second opera, Les Guelfes, completed in 1882 but not premiered until 1902, seven years after the composer’s early death. The funeral-march opening is contrasted with a spirited and gripping central section that vividly represents the composer’s flair for dramatically contrasted passages in colourful orchestral garb. The RSNO’s suave strings and brass respond magnificently.

Godard’s four-movement Piano Concerto No 2, while perhaps not quite as alluring as No 1, shares with its predecessor grand Lisztian flourishes, sparkling Mendelssohnian figurations and a nod to Saint-Saëns, including in the Scherzo a brief imitation of the galumphing waltz subject from his concerto in the same key. Victor Sangiorgio is at one with the idiom, able to charm and barnstorm with the best of them, sound engineer Dexter Newman capturing the full-bodied bass of the piano in a warm, spacious soundscape. The Fantaisie persane for piano and orchestra (1884) is another attractive rarity, a companion to Godard’s other excursion into then fashionable orientalism, the Symphonie orientale heard on Vol 1. The two suites from Jocelyn include, of course, Godard’s big hit, the Berceuse, played with understated eloquence by cellist Aleksei Kiseliov. Full marks to Martin Yates and Dutton for another delightful voyage of discovery.

-- Jeremy Nicholas, Gramophone

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Benjamin Godard (18 August 1849 – 10 January 1895) was a French violinist and composer. He studied at the Conservatoire de Paris under Henri Vieuxtemps (violin) and Napoléon Henri Reber (harmony). Godard's long list of works includes eight operas, five symphonies, two piano concertos, three string quartets, four sonatas for violin and piano, a sonata for cello and piano, two piano trios, and various other orchestral works. Godard was opposed to the music of Richard Wagner and also highly critical of Wagner's antisemitism. His style was more in tune with those of Felix Mendelssohn and Robert Schumann.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Benjamin_Godard

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Victor Sangiorgio is an Australian classical pianist. He was born in Italy, grew up and trained in Australia, resides in London and performs internationally. By the age of nineteen he had been a soloist with all the major Australian orchestras and had recorded and broadcast extensively on radio and television. He was a finalist in the 1978 ABC Instrumental and Vocal competition and the 1988 Sydney International Piano Competition. Sangiorgio has given masterclasses in many cities and has also been Visiting Lecturer in Piano at the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland, the Colchester Institute, and the Royal Birmingham Conservatoire.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Victor_Sangiorgio

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Martin Yates (born in London) is a British conductor. He studied at the Royal College of Music and Trinity College of Music. Yates made his conducting debut in 1983, and has since appeared regularly at several major opera houses including Paris, Vienna, Dresden, Copenhagen, Helsinki, Stockholm, Oslo, Naples, Rome and Tokyo. From 1994 to 1999, he was the principal conductor of the National Symphony Orchestra in London, and from 2010 to 2014, principal conductor of the Symphony Orchestra of the Cambridge University Music Society. Yates has made over 100 recordings, including many world premiers.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martin_Yates

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