The Program

Sonata for Violin and Piano in G Minor by Claude Debussy.
Written in 1917, this was Debussy’s last composition.

Sonata for Violin and Piano in G Major by Maurice Ravel
Completed in 1927, this was also Ravel’s last chamber music composition, noted for its second movement, titled “Blues.”

Sonata for Violin and Piano in A Major by Cesar Franck
Composed in 1886 as a wedding gift for a celebrated violinist, this is one of Franck’s best known and most recorded works. Franck was notable for employing a cyclic form( using a central motif to generate principal themes that unify several movements of a single work), which influenced the compositions of Debussy and Ravel.

Fantasie for Violin and Piano by Olivier Messiaen
Only published recently for the first time, Messiaen composed this work in 1933 for his first wife, the violinist and composer Claire Delbos. Messiaen experimented especially with rhythms. He was also an ornithologist who included birdsong in many compositions, and he had a form of synesthesia in which sounds produced colors, correspondences which he developed in several works.