Classical Music | Music for Duo

Recorded on 01/12/2011, uploaded on 07/05/2011

Musician's or Publisher's Notes

Francis Poulenc was the youngest of the French composers who belonged to the “group of six.” The group was against “Wagnerism” and impressionism, and was striving for new simplicity with a strong jazz influence.  He destroyed two violin sonatas before he completed this one in 1943 for a young violinist, Ginette Neveu, who lost her life in a plane crash in 1949. Poulenc revised the piece in the year of her death. The sonata is dedicated to a Spanish poet Federico Garcia Lorca who was shot by Fascist Falangists shortly after the outbreak of civil war in his country.

The piece opens with a fast Allegro con fuoco that is followed by one of the most beautiful and lyrical slow movements, Intermezzo. It is headed by a quotation from Garcia Lorca: ‘The guitar makes dreams weep.’ The last movement carries an uncommon indication: Presto tragico. It starts with a very fast beat, brings us to a lyrical theme, and inevitably drives us to a tragic ending where we completely lose the sense of tonality and have a feeling that life was suddenly interrupted.  Only at the very end does Poulenc bring us back to the original key of the piece.     Guy Figer

Courtesy of International Music Foundation.