Classical Music | Violin Music

Recorded on 11/30/2004, uploaded on 01/19/2009

Musician's or Publisher's Notes

Sonata for Violin and Piano         Claude Debussy

Allegro vivo; Intermède; Finale                   

Debussy was a pupil of Cesar Franck, among others.  He is associated with the "impressionistic" style, a term borrowed from the world of painting.  The implied comparison between disciplines arises from the breaking away from traditional forms and expanding the range of instrumental color and harmonies.  This sonata was composed in 1917 as a part of a group of chamber works Debussy dedicated to his wife; it is the composer's last work.  Parts of the sonata are colored by gypsy music, an influence originating from a meeting with a gypsy violinist in Budapest in 1910.  Debussy uses single idioms of the violin technique, for example, the dragging of a tone upwards or downwards; this gives the piece its rhapsodic character, which is in contrast with the formality of the traditional sonata form.    Janet Sung

Courtesy of International Music Foundation.