KIM BOMSORI / JULIEN QUENTIN

Debussy presents a panoply of tempi, dynamics and moods in just the first minute of his melancholic Violin Sonata of 1917. In fact its gypsy inflections and defiant energy are very much at odds with his own downbeat assessment of it as ‘an example of what may be produced by a sick man in time of war.’ Szymanowski’s similarly dark Violin Sonata is an early-career work, from 1909. A dramatic ‘Patetico’ is followed by a lyrical slow movement featuring a pizzicato centre, before a tarantella finale – a dance he then reprised in 1915, now wilder, preceded by a Nocturne awash with the influence of Debussy and Persian Sufism. Fauré’s own First Violin Sonata sounds notably modern for its 1877 time. After an ardent Allegro molto comes an Andante moving from D minor darkness to D major rapture. Next comes a puckish scherzo, punctuated by a wistful trio, before a flowing, multifaceted finale.