Sonata for cello and piano

Alongside works written for his first instrument, the violin, as well as piano music, symphonies and vocal works, the catalogue of Benjamin Godard also contains several pieces for cello. Completely forgotten nowadays, the Sonata in D minor op.104, published by Durand and Schoenewerk in 1887, testifies to Godard’s skill in writing for the cello, and in particular for displaying the expressive potential associated with its different registers. The sonata also reveals the influence of Schumann’s music on the young professor of the instrumental ensemble class at the Paris Conservatoire. It begins with movement in triple time whose first bars evoke the genre of the barcarolle, and whose sombre minor-key colouring may also remind us of Franz Liszt’s La lugubre gondola for piano (or piano and violin/cello). The statement of the second theme, in F major on the piano, is accompanied by figuration typical of Schumann. The highly lyrical second movement, with its delicate chromatic harmonies, is also strongly marked by German idioms. In the finale, the specifically Schumannesque influence is again apparent in the formidable rhythmic energy generated by the homorhythmic style of a forceful motif based on the repetition of the same cells, characterised by powerful accents and the harsh interval of a descending augmented fourth. The strongly contrasted discourse of the movement oscillates between this resolute character and lighter or more cantabile passages.