Tune in every day at one o'clock when host Chris Wolf will feature a work by the French violinist and Romatic-era composer.

Benjamin Louis Paul Godard was born in Paris on 18 August 1849 into a family of merchants in which music was avidly practised. An excellent

Benjamin Godard c. 1880 Bibliotheque nationale de france
violinist, a pupil of Richard Hammer then of Henri Vieuxtemps, he rapidly showed his creative gifts and entered the Paris Conservatory in the composition class of Henri Reber. Despite not winning the Prix de Rome competition, he worked unflaggingly; he gained a reputation on account of his piano works and his chamber music, several pieces of which were first performed by the Société Nationale de Musique (where he also appeared as a violinist and viola player), and then in 1878 he won the Prix de la Ville de Paris for his ‘symphonie dramatique’ — a vast secular oratorio — Le Tasse.

 

 

This consecration marked the blossoming of an extremely prolific career (by the time of his death, at the age of 46, he had written more than 150 opus numbers) that led him to compose six  operas, including Jocelyn from Lamartine, staged with success in Brussels in 1887, four symphonies, concertos for piano and for violin, some hundred songs and innumerable pieces for piano in which the best (Sonatas, Études) rub shoulders with genre pieces often hastily dashed off.

Of more consistent quality, his chamber music includes two trios, four sonatas for violin and piano, a very fine Sonata for Cello and Piano, a Suite for Flute and Piano — that flautists have enjoyed up to the present day — as well as three string quartets.

 

 

Godard became a professor at the Conservatoire de Paris in 1887, and was made a Chevalier (Knight) of the Légion d'honneur in 1889.

Godard's long list of works in other forms includes three symphonies: Symphonie gothique (1883), Symphonie orientale (1884), and Symphonie légendaire (1886); Concerto romantique for violin and orchestra (1876), 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. Among his piano pieces may be mentioned the 2nd Mazurka, the 2nd Valse, Au Matin, Postillon, En Courant, En Train, and Les Hirondelles. Florian's Song is also very popular and has been arranged for many instruments. One of Godard's sonatas for violin and piano contains a scherzo written in the unusual time signature of 5/8. He wrote more than 100 songs. He is best known for his opera Jocelyn.

 

 

Benjamin Godard bust by Ernest-Charles DiosiAccording to the Encyclopædia Britannica Eleventh Edition, "Godard's compositions are unequal, if only because his productivity was enormous. He was at his best in works of smaller dimensions. Among his more ambitious works, the Symphonie légendaire may be singled out as being one of the most distinctive."

Godard was opposed to the music of Richard Wagner and also highly critical of Wagner's antisemitism. Godard's musical style was more in tune with those of Felix Mendelssohn and Robert Schumann.

Godard died in Cannes from tuberculosis in 1895, aged 45, and was buried at the family plot in Taverny.

Sources: GODARD: THE BENJAMIN OF FRENCH ROMANTICS By Jacques Tchamkerten

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