The first movement of Maurice Ravel’s Sonatine for piano was probably written in 1903. At any rate the composer played it on 8 January 1904 at a soirée 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 premiere in 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 classically structured work in his own concert programmes.
