Classical Music | Piano Music

Recorded on 11/15/2005, uploaded on 01/09/2009

Musician's or Publisher's Notes

Sonatine         Maurice Ravel

Modéré; Mouvement de menuet; Animé

Maurice Ravel was inspired to compose Sonatine by a 1903 competition sponsored by the Weekly Critical Review, a fine arts and literary magazine. The requirement was a first movement of a piano sonatina no longer than seventy-five measures, and the prize offered was one hundred francs. However, the magazine went out of business and the contest was cancelled. The remaining second and third movements were completed two years later, keeping the late eighteenth-century elegance and classical structure. Both are short in length, probably to maintain proportion to the first movement. Ravel frequently programmed the first two movements of the Sonatine, not the last, however, fearing he could not play it well enough.     Stephanie Shih-yu Cheng

Courtesy of International Music Foundation.