This supporting document focuses upon Maurice Ravel’s Sonata for Violin and Piano (1923-1927). Composed between 1923 and 1927, this sonata is the second of his two violin sonatas, which took him four years to complete. As the last amongst his chamber music repertoire, Ravel believes that the incompatibility between violin and piano is further highlighted with this genre.

After World War I, in which the composer himself was involved, his compositional style had undergone substantial change. This change inaugurates his signature post-war style and was first evidenced in the Sonata for Violin and Cello (1920-1922) which Ravel also believes to be the most important turning point of his musical style, characterized by simpler harmony, increased interest in the melodious contour and the use of bitonality. This Violin Sonata for Violin and Piano (1923-1927) inherits the tradition in the Sonata for Violin and Cello with marked independence between voices, simple texture, and some passages with bitonality.

Ravel incorporates various musical styles from the French tradition on the line of Saint-Sëans and Fauré, the French impressionism, and the oriental exoticism following the Exposition Universelle, which altogether matured his compositions with time. This Violin Sonata includes three major styles: the jazz element dominant at the time, the neo-classicism on the rise, and the French impressionism. By probing into the composer’s life and his time, his musical style and background, we gain further understandings of his musical ideas, and through analysis on the work itself and its interpretation, we arrive at embodiment of proper aesthetics and spirit with violinistic techniques and performing sensibilities.