Frank Braley . Renaud Capuçon . Gautier Capuçon

The Piano Trio in A minor was Ravel's first mature piece of chamber music. From the very beginning he had been aware of the difficulties of fusing the contrasting timbres of strings and piano. Yet he did not avoid the challenge. He drew inspiration from Saint-Saëns' Piano Trio, who in his opinion was the only one who had been able to solve this problem satisfactorily. Ravel composed the work in Saint-Jean-de-Luz in the Basque region, where he was born, in 1914. The melody and rhythm of the Piano Trio are permeated with influences from Basque folklore. The Sonata for violin and cello, written between 1920 and 1922, marks a notable stylistic change in Ravel's work. After the First World War a greater economy of means appeared, linked to increasing attention to melody rather than harmony. Ravel (1875-1937) added extremely detailed performance instructions to the score. In the second part, for example, the cello should at certain moments sound like a flute and the violin like a drum. The Sonata for violin and piano, completed in 1927, is also defined by unprecedented sonorities. Ravel emphasised the gap between the two irreconcilable musical worlds of violin and piano by setting them against each other in a confrontational manner. In the middle section, entitled 'Blues', he expressed his growing enthusiasm for the jazz music that was becoming popular at that time.