Description
Having returned to his native country, which had become the USSR, Sergei Prokofiev began composing his First Violin Sonata in 1938 for the legendary David Oistrakh, its dedicatee. The work was not to be completed until 1946, and Oistrakh played its two Andante movements at Prokofiev’s funeral.
In the meantime, Francis Poulenc had conceived his own Violin Sonata in occupied Paris in 1942-43 with input from the great violinist Ginette Neveu, who premiered it at the Salle Gaveau in June 1943 with Poulenc at the piano.