Violin Sonata No. 2 in E Minor

Gabriel Fauré’s Violin Sonata No. 2, composed in 1916, some 40 years after his much more famous Violin Sonata No. 1, is the first in a sequence of chamber works dating from the last years of his life. By this stage, Fauré’s music had become increasingly austere and elusive. In the Violin Sonata No. 2, this is manifested by the restlessly changing and frequently strange harmonies that move from key to key, often without any clear resolution, and by the constantly evolving and fluid dialogue of musical ideas shared equally between the instruments. There is little doubt that the political turmoil of the First World War had a marked impact on the turbulent expression and sense of struggle inflecting the first and third of the Sonata’s three movements. Even the central “Andante”, which opens with a wonderfully lyrical, almost naive melody, doesn’t fully escape the shadow of war, especially when the violin introduces a contrasting idea that becomes increasingly anguished as it gradually moves toward a powerful climax.