Violin Sonata No. 1 in A major, Op. 13

The piano launches the opening Allegro molto with a long, arching theme that runs for over twenty bars before the violin enters, an unusually patient and spacious way to begin a chamber sonata. Fauré was thirty years old and still largely unknown when he wrote it, yet the piece already shows his personal fingerprint: smooth, continuous modulation that keeps the harmony subtly shifting without any abrupt jolts. The slow second movement is a rocking barcarolle in D minor that moves through chromatic inner voices before the finale closes with a quiet, hushed coda of spiccato scales kept at pianissimo almost to the last bar.

What to listen for

In the third movement scherzo, the violin interrupts its own melodic line with sudden pizzicato plucks, the bow put down mid-phrase, creating a flicker of texture that disappears as quickly as it arrives. In the finale, notice how the development takes just the opening three notes of the main theme and turns them over repeatedly against a new, winding violin melody, tightening the argument down to a very small unit of material before the recapitulation opens it back out.

Recommended rendition

Arthur Grumiaux with Paul Crossley (Philips) has been frequently cited as a touchstone account of this sonata; Isabelle Faust with Florent Boffard (Harmonia Mundi) has been praised for its meticulous detail and sustained passion.

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