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

Information

Composer: Benjamin Godard

• (01) Les Guelfes, Op. 70: Overture
• (02) Piano Concerto No. 2 in G minor, Op. 148
• (06) Fantaisie persane, Op. 152
• (08) Jocelyn, opera, Op. 100 - Suite No. 1
• (11) Jocelyn, opera, Op. 100 - Suite No. 2

Victor Sangiorgio, piano (1-7)
Royal Scottish National Orchestra
Martin Yates, conductor

Date: 2012
Label: Dutton Epoch
http://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 orientaleheard 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

More reviews:
http://www.amazon.com/Godard-Piano-Concerto-Victor-Sangiorgio/dp/B008TYGDTQ

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Benjamin Godard (18 August 1849 – 10 January 1895) was a French violinist and Romantic-era composer of Jewish extraction, best known for his opera Jocelyn. He entered the Conservatoire de Paris in 1863 where he studied under Henri Vieuxtemps (violin) and Napoléon Henri Reber (harmony). 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 was opposed to the music of Richard Wagner and more in tune with those of Felix Mendelssohn and Robert Schumann.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Benjamin_Godard

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Victor Sangiorgio is an Australian classical pianist. Sangiorgio was born in Italy but his family moved to Australia when he was four, and settled in Perth, Western Australia, where he received his initial musical training. Further studies were with Stephen Dornan, Roy Shepherd, Guido Agosti and Noretta Conci. 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. Sangiorgio has given masterclasses in many cities and has also been artist in residence at the Western Australian Academy of Performing Arts.

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

http://www.victorsangiorgio.com/profile.html

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Martin Yates (born 1 July 1958 in London) is a British conductor and composer. He studied at the Royal College of Music and Trinity College of Music, London, where his teachers included Bernard Keeffe, Richard Arnell, Ian Lake, Jakob Kaletsky and Alan Rowlands. He has conducted many major symphony orchestras and is a regular conductor of the BBC Concert Orchestra. Yates has made over 70 recordings, including notable recordings of Richard Arnell's work, as well as recordings by other neglected British composers. As a composer, his music for flute and piano has been recorded by flautist Anna Noakes.

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

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