The special significance of this performance of Debussy's Sonata—his last work—is that it was written for the violinist's father Gaston Poulet, who gave the premiere in 1917 with the composer at the piano; a second performance by the same artists in September was Debussy's last public appearance. I have long admired Noel Lee (American-born but Paris-based since 1948) as a Debussy player and Gerard Poulet, too, is very impressive in this beautiful, mercurial and ultimately melancholy piece—which, he says, his father taught him ''in every detail''. This performance, therefore, is probably as close as we can get to the authentic preservation of the composer's intentions. His tone is warm yet delicate, and the lilt and fantasy of the sonata emerge strikingly, with an idiomatic flexibility of tempo and dynamics. The recording, too, is a good one, with just the right amount of atmosphere, although, for my taste, the piano could have been placed a bit more forwardly, not least because Lee is such a fine artist: Nadia Boulanger called him ''one of the finest musicians I have ever met''.
Ravel's Violin Sonata of 1927 also gets a strong performance. Rightly, the playing style is quite different here, and the edgy lyricism of the first movement is perfectly caught, as is the bittersweet quality of the Blues and the barely suppressed hysteria of the Perpetuum mobile. As for the same composer's one-movement Sonata of 1897, which remained unplayed until 1975, this performance brings out its naive charm and makes me think better of it than I did before, though it reveals little of the composer we know. Pierne's Sonata (1900) is a welcome addition to the current catalogue; in Grove, David Cox calls this work by a Franck pupil and Prix de Rome winner ''passionate and brilliant, in every way rewarding'', and I agree. Altogether, an outstanding disc.'