Sonata for Violin and Cello

Ravel composed this sonata between 1920 and 1922; its first movement appeared in a memorial album for Debussy. The writing is deliberately stripped of harmonic padding, leaving two interlocking lines to carry the whole argument — a turn Ravel described as a move away from harmonic thickness and back towards melody. Of the four movements, the second is the most abrasive, built on pizzicato and glissando.