Notes for: August 12, 2025
In 1920, Ravel was one of ten composers asked to contribute to a commemorative tribute honoring Debussy, who had died two years earlier. Ravel’s contribution was a Duo for Violin and Cello. Two years later, the Duo had become the first movement of the Sonata for Violin and Cello. Ravel dedicated the Sonata to Debussy, the composer with whom his name was always linked – not always to Ravel’s pleasure. “For Debussy the musician and the man, I have had profound admiration,” he said, “but by nature I am different from Debussy.” Much of that difference lay in their approach to composing. Ravel was a meticulous craftsman who worked slowly and fastidiously. “My objective,” he once said, “is technical perfection.” So it’s no surprise that it took Ravel as long as it did to finish the Sonata.
By the time he began the Duo, Ravel had moved away from lush Impressionism and toward a leaner, more spare style. He described the Sonata as a turning point in his musical evolution. It was, he said, “music stripped to the bone, the allure of harmony rejected, and increasingly the emphasis returns to the melody.” Economy of means, as he called it, doesn’t mean dry, though. The Sonata is a stunning work, taut, cyclic in nature, and marked by a richness of melodies, a great variety of textures and timbres, and a vast range of colors. One critic aptly described it as “bristling with virtuosity and lyricism which spits like an angry cat.”
The Allegro begins in striking fashion, with an ascending and descending violin ostinato that alternates between major and minor. Immediately the cello, floating above the violin, introduces the songful first theme, then drops to a lower register to present a jagged sequence of leaping sevenths. These two motifs – the gentle major/ minor triads and the hard-edged leaping sevenths – will recur in cyclical fashion throughout the Sonata. The violin introduces a second lyrical theme over the cello’s syncopation, and this mix of themes and motifs drives an Allegro that, as Ravel promised, favors melody, not harmony.
The delicious second movement is a robust scherzo that plays with instrumental articulation, as violin and cello pluck (pizzicato) and bow (arco) their way through music that gallops energetically along before finally melting into whimsy with a smile-inducing closing glissando. Next Ravel turns his full attention to melody, in a serene slow movement that the cello opens with a stately, chorale-like theme, and that features a turbulent middle section and a recurrence of the sevenths from the first movement. The Sonata closes with a brilliant, virtuosic finale powered by the Sonata’s rich variety of rhythms, motifs, and colors, in a thrilling movement that makes two instruments sound almost orchestral.