MusicWeb International One of the most grown-up review sites around 2024
60,000 reviews
... and still writing ...

Search MusicWeb Here Acte Prealable Polish CDs
 

Presto Music CD retailer
 
Founder: Len Mullenger                                    Editor in Chief:John Quinn             


Some items
to consider

new MWI
Current reviews

old MWI
pre-2023 reviews

paid for
advertisements

Acte Prealable Polish recordings

Forgotten Recordings
Forgotten Recordings
All Forgotten Records Reviews

TROUBADISC
Troubadisc Weinberg- TROCD01450

All Troubadisc reviews


FOGHORN Classics

Alexandra-Quartet
Brahms String Quartets

All Foghorn Reviews


All HDTT reviews


Songs to Harp from
the Old and New World


all Nimbus reviews



all tudor reviews


Follow us on Twitter


Editorial Board
MusicWeb International
Founding Editor
   
Rob Barnett
Editor in Chief
John Quinn
Contributing Editor
Ralph Moore
Webmaster
   David Barker
Postmaster
Jonathan Woolf
MusicWeb Founder
   Len Mullenger

REVIEW


Advertising on
Musicweb


Donate and keep us afloat

 

New Releases

Naxos Classical
All Naxos reviews

Chandos recordings
All Chandos reviews

Hyperion recordings
All Hyperion reviews

Foghorn recordings
All Foghorn reviews

Troubadisc recordings
All Troubadisc reviews



all Bridge reviews


all cpo reviews

Divine Art recordings
Click to see New Releases
Get 10% off using code musicweb10
All Divine Art reviews


All Eloquence reviews

Lyrita recordings
All Lyrita Reviews

 

Wyastone New Releases
Obtain 10% discount

Subscribe to our free weekly review listing

 

 

alternatively
CD: AmazonUK AmazonUS

Benjamin GODARD (1849-1895)
Piano Concerto No.1 in A minor, Op.31 (1875) [29:17]
Introduction et Allegro pour piano et orchestre, Op.49 (1880) [12:37]
Symphonie Orientale pour orchestre, Op.84 (1884) [27:27]
Victor Sangiorgio (piano)
Royal Scottish National Orchestra/Martin Yates
rec. RSNO Centre, Henry Wood Hall, Glasgow, 13-14 January 2011
DUTTON EPOCH INTERNATIONAL CDLX 7274 [69:51]

Experience Classicsonline



Yet more world premiere recordings from one of the most treasured labels on the classical scene – treasured certainly by those with a taste for exploration and an expectation of exalted artistic and production standards.

Benjamin Godard was famed for the Berceuse from his otherwise unknown opera Jocelyn (1888) in much the same way that Sinding was for his The Rustle of Spring. It is facile to write up - or off - these composers as one-shot ponies. That fine and dedicated pursuer of perles oubliées, Bhagwan Thadani, who has done dedicated and inspired work for the likes of Bortkiewicz and Arensky also championed the French composer Benjamin Godard. He home produced CDs of Godard's concertos and exotic-pictorial symphonies using piano and synthesised orchestra. Here Dutton snatches up the Olympic torch dropped by Thadani with a stylish and captivating collection.

First comes the 26 year old Godard's four movement Piano Concerto in A minor. It's sometimes stern-heroic and at other disconcertingly witty. The manner is tugged between Schumann, Litolff and Tchaikovsky. Saint-Saens is not a bad parallel either with the quality of the ideas only a hair’s-breadth below those at play in Saint-Saens’ Second Piano Concerto. The winsome scherzo is trippingly witty. The composer was only 31 when he delivered himself of the Introduction and Allegro possibly fashioned after the two similarly titled works by Schumann. Stylistically though they are closer to the Litolff concertos (review review) and especially the famous Scherzo once glitteringly advocated by Cherkassky and Katin. Maybe the ideas lean more into the wind of sentimentality but they are the stuff of which affection is built. The performances by all concerned, including the wonderful Sangiorgio, serve to underscore how attractive this music is. The Allegro segment from 1:23 uses a haughty Carmen-strutting idea but wearing a distinctly Slavonic sneer. Lastly we hear the 35 year old composer’s Symphonie Orientale. It's another pictorial work with something of Berlioz's exotica about it. The Orientale is one of five symphonies. Exotica also appears in Godard’s works for piano and orchestra such as Fantaisie Persane for piano and orchestra (1893). Most striking are the sprightly and hiccupping China perhaps with an eye on The Nutcracker. One can also make a connection with Dukas and La Péri; suddenly our frame of reference opens wide. Greece with its easy careless lyricism is sans souci and not very erotically charged. Then come the drifting balletic tendrils of Persia and the bombastic mameluke armies of Turkey - no Jingling Johnnies though. It’s more like Max Steiner than Korngold. This is a work along the lines established and pursued through Félicien David's Ode Symphonique - Le Désert (1844) (Capriccio), and ten years later, Reyer's Le Sélam (Phoenix Edition).

We already have Chloe Hanslip’s revivals of the two violin concertos on Naxos. After this more than promising start we can look forward, I hope, to the dramatic choral symphony La Tasse (1878), string quartets and violin sonatas and five other symphonies: No. 1, No.2 (1880), No. 3 Ballet (1882), No. 4 Gothique (1883) and No. 6 Légendaire (1886) though it may be a few years before revival of Jocelyn and the five other operas. Meantime Dutton have the market in these starry Godard revivals all to its own; done with style, need I add.

Rob Barnett




 

 

 



 


EXPLORE MUSICWEB INTERNATIONAL

Making a Donation to MusicWeb

Writing CD reviews for MWI

About MWI
Who we are, where we have come from and how we do it.

Site Map

How to find a review

How to find articles on MusicWeb
Listed in date order

Review Indexes
   By Label
      Select a label and all reviews are listed in Catalogue order
   By Masterwork
            Links from composer names (eg Sibelius) are to resource pages with links to the review indexes for the individual works as well as other resources.

Themed Review pages

Jazz reviews

 

Discographies
   Composer
      Composer surveys
   National
      Unique to MusicWeb -
a comprehensive listing of all LP and CD recordings of given works
.
Prepared by Michael Herman

The Collector’s Guide to Gramophone Company Record Labels 1898 - 1925
Howard Friedman

Book Reviews

Complete Books
We have a number of out of print complete books on-line

Interviews
With Composers, Conductors, Singers, Instumentalists and others
Includes those on the Seen and Heard site

Nostalgia

Nostalgia CD reviews

Records Of The Year
Each reviewer is given the opportunity to select the best of the releases

Monthly Best Buys
Recordings of the Month and Bargains of the Month

Comment
Arthur Butterworth Writes

An occasional column

Phil Scowcroft's Garlands
British Light Music articles

Classical blogs
A listing of Classical Music Blogs external to MusicWeb International

Reviewers Logs
What they have been listening to for pleasure

Announcements

 

Community
Bulletin Board

Give your opinions or seek answers

Reviewers
Past and present

Helpers invited!

Resources
How Did I Miss That?

Currently suspended but there are a lot there with sound clips


Composer Resources

British Composers

British Light Music Composers

Other composers

Film Music (Archive)
Film Music on the Web (Closed in December 2006)

Programme Notes
For concert organizers

External sites
British Music Society
The BBC Proms
Orchestra Sites
Recording Companies & Retailers
Online Music
Agents & Marketing
Publishers
Other links
Newsgroups
Web News sites etc

PotPourri
A pot-pourri of articles

MW Listening Room
MW Office

Advice to Windows Vista users  
Questionnaire    
Site History  
What they say about us
What we say about us!
Where to get help on the Internet
CD orders By Special Request
Graphics archive
Currency Converter
Dictionary
Magazines
Newsfeed  
Web Ring
Translation Service

Rules for potential reviewers :-)
Do Not Go Here!
April Fools






Untitled Document


Reviews from previous months
Join the mailing list and receive a hyperlinked weekly update on the discs reviewed. details
We welcome feedback on our reviews. Please use the Bulletin Board
Please paste in the first line of your comments the URL of the review to which you refer.