Sonatas 7 & 8 in D major and D major

Sonata 7 in D major opens with a sunny Andante that nevertheless has a poignant moment just before the end. The technically challenging Allegro moderato that follows bounces along airily, throwing out scales, arpeggios and wide leaps with equal abandon. The concluding Allegro is a feast of syncopation: an object lesson in how to compose a coherent movement based on a single idea that never comes close to sounding tedious. Sonata 8, in the same key, is the only work in the set to arrange its three movements in a Fast–Slow–Fast pattern. Its opening Allegro is especially well-developed formally, coming close to mature Classical sonata style. For the Adagio in B minor Balicourt takes a chromatic idea heard earlier in the first movement and develops it intensively and poignantly: this is the ‘jewel’ of the slow movements in the set. The Moderato finale is enlivened with some interesting modulations and harmonic twists as well as some attractive moments of animation in the bass.