Allegretto poco moderato
Adagio
Allegretto  

Martinů composed this sonata in less than two weeks, between 4 and 16 May 1937 while he was living in Paris. The work is dedicated to Blanche Honegger, a violinist who studied with Adolf Busch and who later married the pianist Louis Moyse. With his father, the flautist Marcel Moyse, they gave the first performance  of Martinů’s sonata on French Radio on 1 July 1937. (Blanche Honegger Moyse later moved to the United States and became a much-admired conductor. She died in 2011 at the age of 101). Martinů had moved to Paris in the 1920s and he completed his studies there with Albert Roussel. With his homeland under threat from Nazi invasion, this sonata has musical characteristics that reflect a love of his homeland including stylised polka rhythms and turns of phrase typical of Moravian folk music. When German forces occupied Paris, Martinů fled to the United States where he lived until 1953. Shortly after emigrating, he was asked by the New York Herald Tribune about his most important musical influences and he listed Bohemian and Moravian folk music, the English madrigal and the music of Debussy. Elements of all these can be heard in this three-movement work