Godard's sonatas for solo violin--"baroque" music from the 19th century

[Double-A]

In an idle moment I downloaded the two sonatas for unaccompanied violin by Benjamin Godard from IMSLP and started trying them out on my fiddle to discover how they sound and how hard they are to play.  I have been practicing them somewhat seriously for a while now and got to know them and like them.

Both sonatas are in 4 short movements, no. 1 (op. 20) in b-minor (Prélude--lento, in free meter almost all the way through like a cadenza, Gavotte, Adagio, Minuet--the only movement where maybe the inspiration failed a little) and number 2 (op. posthum) in a-minor (Sarabande, Rigodon, Adagio ma non troppo, Bourrée).  They were composed early and late in the composer's life, but look like companion pieces all the same.

There is a recording of both of them on a CD called "The Hidden Violin" with Vaughan Jones (soundbites here:) along with other late 19th century solo violin compositions.  As far as I can tell it has not been mentioned on this forum (it appeared in 2014). 

There are reviews here, here and here.

All of the reviews stress the influence of the 6 sonatas and partitas by J.S. Bach.  And the influence is obviously there in all the dance movements.  All three reviewers see Godard's works more or less as "under the shadow" of Bach, one even used the word "musically tongue-tied" to describe this.  I disagree with that judgment and would like to hear what others think about this.  To me the tongue is not tied so much as it is in cheek.  The music is delightful rather than ambitious and envelope pushing.  In that sense it seems to me much closer to Telemann's also delightful 12 "Fantasias" for solo violin than to Bach though Godard knew almost certainly nothing about the Telemann pieces. 

The tempo marking on the first movement of the second sonata for example is "Sarabande, molto moderato and pomposamente".  Observe that by using the adverb of "pomposo" Godard managed to add two more pompous syllables.  Can you imagine Bach marking a tempo like this?  The two adagios are more serious though and very beautiful.  All movements contain detailed if not always exactly consistent articulation markings, for example in the gavotte of sonata 1 where some crotchets are marked staccato, others tenuto, some quavers staccato, others legato.  There are also numerous dynamic markings, often asking for sharp dynamic contrasts such as in the Bourrée of sonata 2 where the theme is presented with the last and first quaver of the measure played forte and the semiquavers in the middle of the measure piano.  This creates a loud-soft-loud-soft switch every half measure (Jones appears to largely ignore these dynamics judging by the soundbites).  The sonatas also feature the deliberate use of open strings for sound effect (sonata 1, gavotte, trio section).  Bach has no such markings with the exception of forti and piani to mark echo effects in a few places.

Another important difference to Bach is the care Godard took to keep the sonatas playable.  While they require a sound technique they are not asking for many unconventional and/or uncomfortable fingerings; the vast majority of the double stops and chords can be played in first position.  The level of difficulty is held down for a decent amateur to play for his/her own pleasure if maybe not for performance (probably at least in part due to economic considerations).  Godard's two sonatas are about playing for pleasure.  Interpreters I think ought to feel free to use rubato generously, they ought to stress dynamic contrasts and obey the articulation markings--or if they do not want to follow all the markings slavishly they ought to find their version of spicing things up by means of articulation and dynamics.

Judging from the soundbites, which cover a reasonable percentage of the short movements Vaughan Jones is missing out on this.  He plays mostly quite slowly (often about in the tempo of Bach's corresponding dances), with little rubato, quite the way one would play Bach (which is why I ended up not buying the CD).  The reviewers might just have taken a cue from him.

To be complete:  The first sonata is also on youtube in a transcription for viola here, played by Mikhail Bugaew (who is the author of the transcription).  This interpretation is more to my liking than the CD except the adagio is rather fast.  The pizzicati in the second trio of the minuet on the other hand sound a lot better on the viola than on the violin.  Also on youtube:  A recording of the adagio of the first sonata here.  This one is rather weak:  Way too fast and with unstable tempo, i.e. the fluctuations in tempo one hears appear to be random and unplanned rather than a deliberate rubato.

Finally I do think that while these sonatas are inspired by Bach's masterpieces they are very much part of another (small) "tradition" as well:  Imitation baroque music of the nineteenth century (romantic neo-baroque?).  The most famous example of this category is of course Grieg's Holberg suite.  There are also Respighi's "Antiche Danze et Arie" and there are unsung pieces by Raff as well as Spohr's "Historic Symphony" which expands the concept to include several historic styles not to mention the other pieces on the CD above.  All of these pieces are not true reconstructions of "ancient" music; they use modern techniques (modern violin bows for example that allow articulations that were inaccessible to Bach) and are more about recreating the spirit of the times as their composers saw it than about imitating outdated models.  I guess it might be a good learning experience to try and play the Holberg suite on 18th century period instruments...

BTW we had a little debate in another thread about how to call these works.  Godard made it simple:  He titled them "Sonate pour le violon"--when no other instrument is mentioned no other instrument is to be expected.

[eschiss1]

Whether or not he knew any Telemann (and his generation- Saint-Saëns for instance- was responsible for the revival of interest in a certain amount of French Baroque music, so... ?...) - (one of?) his teachers, Vieuxtemps, was writing solo violin music before Godard was born (1845 vs 1849, though I don't know how Vieuxtemps' or other contemporary solo violin works "sound"...), for instance...

[Double-A]

I didn't know about Vieuxtemps.  IMSLP has one solo work* (6 morceaux etc.), "divertissement" is on the list of works but the score is not available.
I still don't know how they sound (or "sound") but I looked at them.  There is some relationship to Bach:  The first morceau (andante) copies the rhythm of the first movement of Bach's C-Major sonata such that the music looks like Bach though probably doesn't quite sound like Bach.  No. 4 (?) called Tempo di Minuetto" is an actual minuet complete with trio.  No. 6 is a prélude et fugue and looks Bachian in both parts (runs of demisemiquavers and faster in the prélude, very difficult double triple and quadruple stopping.
The Vieuxtemps is out of my reach technically which confirms the idea that Godard kept things deliberately "easy" in his sonatas.

As to Telemann I'd think it likely that Godard knew about him, but nonetheless very unlikely that he knew about the "fantasias".  How many people know about them even nowadays?  When they have been published (Bärenreiter) and recorded (Grumiaux among others though I haven't heard a really convincing version)?

* Not counting etudes.  I am assuming Vieuxtemps etudes sound like etudes buy other composers/teachers.

[matesic]

Gulp - they do look somewhat easier than Bach's solo sonatas, but with any amount of practice it'd still be mostly torture for me and anyone within earshot. The violin is the best instrument of all for lyrical espressivo, so why anyone should want to put it through contortions better suited to the guitar completely baffles me.  BTW the Bach cello suites are great to play on a violin if you can get your head round the transposition. I play from Watson Forbes's viola arrangement and just imagine I'm playing a small viola (of course they sound a fifth higher).

[Double-A]

For those who are not literate on several instruments and still want to play the cello suites on the violin there is (are?) an edition(s) for violin that does not require reading the C clef (e.g. here).  I don't have them with me right now but I used to play them back in the day wen I still took lessons.  And it is true that they are rewarding though they sound much better on the cello or on the viola than on the fiddle.

I have to say though that the later suites, especially number 5 and 6, are hardly easier than the Godard if at all (and pose the problem with "torture" too).*

If you actually gave the Godard sonatas a shot (and some time to mature--at least for me it is essential never to rush practicing if I want to play acceptably) I am sure you'd find them more playable than you thought.  They are less hard than most of Spohr's violin duos (which often have three or four voices over extended stretches of music and require much more tricky double stopping than the Godard, yet lyrical espressivo is everywhere).  Double stopping and lyrical espressivo do not necessarily exclude each other (e.g. third movement of Bach's a-minor sonata--as well as both adagios by Godard).

*  I have always wondered why the suites--unlike any of Bach's other sets of pieces--seem to be arranged in the order of increasing technical difficulty.

[matesic]

The moderators must have been asleep to let that one go by, but to row back into home territory does anyone know of any romantic works for solo violin that play to the instrument's natural strength of cantabile ("in a singing style") and don't then launch into a torrent of empty note-spinning? One (accompanied) piece that springs to mind is Berlioz's Reverie et Caprice, although I'd have to admit it isn't top-drawer Berlioz.

[matesic]

Double-A will certainly not need informing that Mazas is one romantic composer who did write simple, cantabile music for solo violin. I'm looking forward to trying his 8 Melodies Opus 80.

Alternatively, here's a way of abusing your instrument that I hadn't come across before:

http://imslp.org/wiki/Adagio_religioso,_Op.2_(Soldan,_Otto)

You unscrew the frog, poke the stick underneath the violin and wrap the hairs over the top so you can play all four strings at once!

[Double-A]

I was going to leave this alone, but I think the expression "empty note spinning" is mischaracterizing the Godard sonatas with its short movements that follow more or less the established patterns for dance movements.  You may dislike the way the fiddle is employed in them, that is a matter of taste, but these are valid and inspired compositions IMHO; only the minuet of the first sonata is somewhat lacking in inspiration.

There are of course dozens if not hundreds of romantic violin concertos (and cadenzas) that feature empty note spinning (Spohr very much included) but those sonatas are not guilty.

I also take some issue with your insistence on the violin's "natural strength of cantabile".  I'd say an oboe or a clarinet can do cantabile as well as a fiddle (if you take "cantabile" literally then even better:  Wind players work with the breath like singers).  It is the versatility of the instrument that sets the stringed instruments apart.  You can influence the tone with the bow (the whole spectrum from sul taste to sul ponticello plus speed and pressure variation) and with the left hand; you have many different articulations (at least since Tourte), legato, staccato, spiccato, ricochet etc.  Plus pizzicato.  Many of those options are not cantabile but they are perfectly legitimate means of expression for a fiddle.  This is not to dispute the beauty of cantabile on the violin, just to say there is so much more it can do too.

Thank you for pointing out Mazas op. 80; I had assumed (but it had never occurred to me to verify) that there was a piano included...  I'll definitely give them a try; they look quite hard in places too though, especially no. 8.  BTW the double stopping in some of the Mazas etudes is far from easy.  I have been practicing no. 26 and 27 on and off for years and still can't play them properly...

I had a good laugh at your other example. It is no coincidence that it appeared in the US, the land of snake oil salesmen (where I'll move back in a few months).  I believe the composer is lying when he claims to play the piece with the bow stick under the fiddle (and the hair over the strings of course).  He claims it explicitly; in the even funnier German introduction he claims grandly to produce "full sound and expression" that way though he admits it is "peculiar".  If you think about it you realize that no more than half the length of your bow hair will be available to play; the rest will have to stay unused.  Not enough to play a whole note in adagio.  (Or else you have to get your bow maker to put longer hair on your bow so you can still install the frog as usual--if there exist any horses with long enough tails...)  What is more there are plenty of three voice chords.  How you would get the E string to stay quiet with the hair going right over it I don't know; at best it would require some very subtle adjustment of the angle of the bow--with the stick and the frog unconnected and both in your fist.  But it comes even worse on the second page where we find a series of crotchets (3 and 4 voiced) which are supposed to be played with accents and every one of them on the down bow.  To retake the bow and to start any note with an accent is a physical impossibility under the circumstances.

[matesic]

Well yes, I was being a bit provocative about the Godard Sonatas but certainly wouldn't put him in the "note-spinner" category, so hopefully we can put that dispute to bed!

I will stick to my guns regarding "cantabile" however. I didn't mean to imply that the violin is inept at non-vocal forms of expression or that these are in some sense "illegitimate", just that many composers particularly of the nineteenth century seem willfully to neglect what I consider to be its chief strengths. Looking through the solo violin music available on imslp it's extraordinarily hard to find anything predominantly lyrical - too many notes! Ironically, most pianist-composers of that era seem to be intent on persuading us that a percussion instrument which is ideally adapted to play many notes extremely fast or simultaneously is also capable of cantabile! The range of attack, sustenance (if that's the right word), tone colour, pitch bending, portamento etc available to a violinist who wishes to consciously emulate the human voice I'd say is wider and more instinctive in its execution than that afforded by any wind instrument. Maybe inspiration and expiration are literally lacking, but one of the more useful tips I learned in my last orchestra was to breathe along with the phrasing (must remember to do it some time..).

Mazas's Opus 80 is as grateful to play as I'd expected, although hardly grate music. I didn't actually look too hard at Otto Soldan's masterpiece; I might be tempted to have a go only my Skylark violin was recently recycled as "sculpture"!

[Alan Howe]

The moderators must have been asleep

You're right there! Zzzzzzz...

[Double-A]

I sightread about 70% of the Mazas op. 80 directly from the computer screen and decided I don't need to print them.  They are all cantabile all right, but the musical ideas seem curiously non-characteristic and resemble each other throughout the opus.  Also the individual "melodies" are rather longer than they should be.  Too bad; somebody made such a nice typeset of them (though he neglected to mention his source) a few errors with accidentals notwithstanding.

His etudes are definitely superior.  More contrast between as well as within the etudes, more memorable ideas, more concise compositions.  The constraints of etude writing seem to have woken up his creativity.  Just in the first volume I find 13 out of the 30 etudes that I consider good enough to be performed for an audience.

As to that percussion instrument:  There are "percussionists" around who can sing with all those hammers.  How they do that (there must be a physical, i.e. technical explanation) escapes me completely.  They are at such a massive distance from where the tone is generated!  But I say:  More power to them!

BTW I do think the two adagios in the Godard are lyrical or at least cantabile (not exactly sure about the meaning of "lyrical" in this context) in spite of the many notes i.e. double stops (at least they should be cantabile in a good realization).

[matesic]

Mazas calls his Opus 80 "Mélodies" but they're formally more ambitious than that suggests. Four of the eight comprise two linked movements while number I at least is clearly in sonata-form. Without any accompaniment it's asking a lot of the violinist to make such extended forms interesting, and a little more bravura writing probably wouldn't come amiss! But I'd say he's attempting something rather unusual here - a classico-romantic take on the solo violin sonata while Godard's is neo-baroque. I'll certainly be returning to them a few times.

In spite of occasional mistakes (one being the estimated timing of 20 minutes!) I think Bernhard Köpfer's transcription deserves more credit than the one star some mean-spirited scrooge has given it!

[Double-A]

There is also the "Schottische Melodie" by Joachim.  It is on the CD that also contains the Godard sonatas.  The soundbite is part of the melody, simple and unaccompanied, not a single double stop in those 30 seconds (out of 2 min 25 sec).

A "Schottische Melodie" can also be found on IMSLP, handwritten on a single sheet of paper.  It is the same melody but accompanied by means of double stopping (it would be easy to play as a duo without any double stops).  The melody is played once, then repeated an octave higher and with a different accompaniment.  It looks like a whole piece on the page with  the final one and a half measures scrunched together so as to fit the sheet.  But it seems more likely it is part of the piece on the CD--one variation of several. At the bottom of the page the following line:  "Jan 1916" followed by three words I can't read and then "Joachim in Göttingen, abgeschrieben von Walther Schultz, Student."  Not having tried it I am not sure but I'd say it is more difficult than the Godard.  In such a setting of a folk song any difficulty would have to be mastered to the point of sounding easy.

It is quite different from the Mazas but definitely not "neobaroque" (quotation marks because the term is generally used for composers of the 20th century). 

[matesic]

The 7 minutes of concatenated excerpts on youtube sound to me more like a man doing battle with his violin than making it sing!

[Double-A]

I had never listened to it but did so now.  Those concatenations are usually awful.  This one is quite good at giving an impression of the CD.  It confirms what one suspects from the soundbites:  It seems too academic, presented like a research project rather than living breathing music.

You'd have to admit though that the violinist is winning the battle at least in a technical sense: no noises from chords, excellent intonation (only a couple of octaves are slightly off as far as I heard), no mishaps of any kind.  Unfortunately not much excitement either.  No risk taking musically or technically, cautiously slow tempi, avoidance of any extreme in dynamics, articulation or rubato, indeed only hints in those directions.  There is such a thing as too good taste.

The video includes the part of the Joachim that is on IMSLP and I find it rather pretty, not earth shaking but as an encore piece it would do very well.  I think one might aim to emphasize the melody more than it is done here.

BTW I agree about the typeset of the Mazas!