Ravel Sonatine (Henle)

The first movement of Maurice Ravel?s Sonatine for piano wasprobably written in 1903. At any rate the composer played iton 8 January 1904 at a soir?e held at the salon of Marguerite de Saint-Marceaux. It is not known at exactly what date afterwards he composed the other two movements. While the work had a very positive reception at its premierein Lyon in 1906, the Paris public was more reserved at first. Ravel seems to have greatly valued the Sonatine because he kept including the clearly and almost classicallystructured work in his own concert programmes.