Barcarolle no. 3 op. 105

Published by Durand and Schoenewerk around 1887, Godard’s Barcarolle op. 105 belongs to a genre much prized by composers of the nineteenth century, from Mendelssohn to Fauré by way of Offenbach and Tchaikovsky. The term ‘barcarolle’ originally designated the songs of Venetian gondoliers and was a favourite means of representation of Venice in the popular imagination, notably in the Baroque period. It lost this extra-musical connotation in the nineteenth century but was still characterised by triple time and an ostinato quaver rhythm evoking the slow movement of a boat on the water. Godard was particularly fond of this type of composition, as may be seen from the abundance of barcarolles for piano in his catalogue. Alongside these pieces, there are others in his instrumental corpus that also illustrate the influence of this genre, such as the Cello Sonata in D minor op. 104 and Sur la mer forpiano (op. 44). While the pianistic scheme adopted in the Barcarolle op. 105 is to some extent reminiscent of Mendelssohn’s Songs without words, the melodic inspiration of this piece owes a greater debt to the music of Schumann, an important point of reference in all Godard’s output. The discourse proceeds by repetition of a single motif that undergoes subtle melodic and harmonic variations which constantly display it in a new light, a compositional device emblematic of the refinement of Godard’s style. Restrained in its expression, the piece is dominated by very gentle dynamics, shifting between pianissimoand piano, which give it a ‘crepuscular’ tinge, to borrow a term used by Godard in the title of another of his barcarolles.