Sonata for solo violin no.2

Godard’s Sonata for solo violin no.2 was composed around 1894-95 and published posthumously in 1896 by the Parisian firm of Choudens. Written in a resolutely historicist vein, it conforms to the model of the sonatas for unaccompanied instrument of the Baroque era and more precisely to that of the sonata da camera, that is to say, the dance suite, several examples of which may be found in the output of Johann Sebastian Bach. The sonata begins with a Sarabande written, as tradition requires, in triple time and moderate tempo. Godard indicates that it is to be performed ‘with pomp’. This majestic movement is followed by a picturesque Rigaudon in a fast tempo, with rising and falling scales of voluble semiquavers. The last dance is a Bourrée in 2/4. In each of the movements, the violin is treated as a polyphonic instrument. The emergence of a multiplicity of voices derives from the frequent use of double stops and chords (the latter device is systematic in the second part of the Bourrée, especially) and from the shape of the melodic lines, which produce the illusion, through changes of register, of a dialogue between two or even three voices, following a procedure characteristic of Bach’s writing for monophonic instruments. While placing itself in the tradition of a virtuoso literature for unaccompanied violin (the Caprices of Paganini), this work also offers an early example of a hommage to the composers of the Baroque period, later instances of which are to be found in Ravel (Le Tombeau de Couperin) and Debussy (the Sonata for flute, viola and harp).