Violin Sonata in G Minor

Debussy played the piano part in the premiere of his newly composed Sonata No. 3 for Violin and Piano, in Paris on March 5, 1917. It was his last appearance as a performer before his death a year later, and the Violin Sonata was his last completed work. Its immediate predecessors, the Cello Sonata and Sonata for Flute, Viola and Harp, had marked a shift in Debussy’s style from evocative impressionism towards a more abstract idiom. The Violin Sonata brings both aspects together: While the violin’s elaborate melodies further explore the almost Bartók-like folk-music style that had featured in the Cello Sonata, the piano part recalls the rippling transparency of Debussy’s earlier piano music. He planned the Violin Sonata as the third of a set of six chamber works. A note in the manuscript indicates that the fourth sonata was to be for oboe, horn, and harpsichord, and the fifth for trumpet, clarinet, bassoon, and piano; but neither of these were ever written.