Classical Music | Violin Music

Recorded on 07/07/2016, uploaded on 09/19/2016

Musician's or Publisher's Notes

In his later years, Claude Debussy planned a series of six chamber sonatas under the title Six sonates pour divers instruments. Only three of the planned works, however, materialized—the two solo sonatas for violin and cello, and the chamber sonata for flute, viola and harp. Each is a testament to Debussy’s skill in the realm of chamber music, but also examples of the composer’s gradual progression toward absolute music and abandonment of the overtly visual and textual elements that had dominated nearly all of his earlier music.

The Violin Sonata in G minor was completed in 1917. It was Debussy’s last completed composition before he died in March of the following year. The work’s premiere took place on May 5, 1917 with Gaston Poulet on violin and the composer himself at the piano in his final appearance as a performer. Like the Cello Sonata before it, the Violin Sonata consists likewise of three movements, and possesses a distinctive brevity. , The structure is also perhaps somewhat more rigid with the customary breaks between each movement.

Though marked Allegro vivo, much of the first movement seems much slower in tempo due to its broad, lyrical melodies. Indeed, much of its energy comes from the piano’s arpeggio figurations, which only in time seem to infect the solo part with its restlessness. Perhaps not feeling the need to include a slow movement because of the lyrical quality of the opening Allegro, Debussy instead inserts a scherzo-like middle movement with gypsy-inspired and improvisatory passages for the violin. Lastly, the finale opens with a direct reference to the opening theme of the first movement, before plunging headlong into a sprightly stream of sixteenth notes. During the movement’s central episode, the animated music gives way briefly to a lyrical and expressive melody. The lively music returns carrying the listener onward to the sonata’s conclusion, an unusually exuberant end for the composer. Debussy confessed that this finale had caused a great deal of frustration during its composition and never materialized quite in the way he envisioned it, yet we can hardly imagine this movement any other way or how it can be considered less than its companion movements.       Joseph DuBose

The Steans Music Institute is the Ravinia Festival's professional studies program for young musicians.