Maurice Ravel’s Introduction et allegro is really a little harp concerto commissioned by the Érard instrument company in response to a competitor, Pleyel, commissioning Claude Debussy’s similar Danse sacrée et danse profane. The two companies were engaged in harp war, each championing a different technology.
To Mussorgsky, Russianness meant gritty realism and embracing his musical intuition—or “utter technical incompetence,” as Rimsky-Korsakov called it.
Ravel’s Violin Sonata No. 2 was a long time in the making, with the first ideas put down as early as 1922 and the premiere in 1927—all for about 17 minutes of music. He struggled with depression as his musical output slowed to a trickle.
This is the first and less famous of Ravel’s two violin sonatas, published long after his death, in 1975.
The outer movements are quick, zany, jazz-inspired. But they frame a slow movement of profound lyricism and simplicity. The startling contrast is part of what gives this concerto its brilliance and wonder.
Ravel’s Sonata for Violin and Cello is a tour-de-force, its thin instrumentation jacked up with blazing string crossings, piercing harmonics, and snapping pizzicatos.