Debussy - Sonatas and Trio

The Guardian 100

Capuçon/Chamayou/Caussé/Pahud/Langlamet/Moreau
(Erato)

The three sonatas that Debussy produced in his final years, together with the two books of piano Études composed immediately before them, hint at the new direction his music might have taken had he not died, aged 56, in 1918. The sonatas – for cello, flute, viola and harp (both composed in 1915), and for violin (1917) – were all that he lived to complete of a planned set of six such works. The fourth sonata was to have been for oboe, horn and harpsichord, and the fifth for clarinet, bassoon, trumpet and piano. The final work would have involved all the instruments used in the preceding sonatas, with the addition of a double bass.