Henri Dutilleux

Sonate

A great-grandson of the painter Constant Dutilleux, a close friend of Eugène Delacroix, a grandson of the composer Julien Koszul and a friend of Gabriel Fauré, Henri Dutilleux (1916–2013) was immersed in a rich artistic environment from an early age on. He felt close to the Groupe de la Jeune France, which included Olivier Messiaen. He wrote many orchestral works, but only a few for piano: the Sonate (written between 1946 and 1948), Figures de résonnances, Le Jeu des contraires and a few other short pieces. Made up of three movements, the Sonate, dedicated to his wife, the pianist Geneviève Joy, follows the traditional sonata structure faithfully. Dutilleux considered his compositional process to have been “a bit too formal” but claims that the composition’s being “more modal than tonal”, is a sign of its modernity, and categorises it as being “born under the sign of transformation”. Historical introduction and notes on interpretation in French and English by the famous pianist Florence Ribot. – New engraving.