Ravel’s unknown, tender Sonata fragment, Poulenc’s dramatic, sad Violin Sonata and Prokofiev’s dark Sonata in F minor. Guro Kleven Hagen and Marianna Shirinyan have chosen profound music for their first release together.

The album’s first piece derives from a Sonata written by Ravel in 1897 at the age of 22 - the same age as Hagen - which was discarded and not rediscovered until 1975. In this movement, many of the shifts and the poetic expression that became Ravel’s trademark are apparent. In 1942/43, while his country suffered from horrible war, Francis Poulenc wrote his only published Violin Sonata. Premiered by David Oistrakh in 1946, Sergei Prokofiev’s First Violin Sonata concludes the programme.

The artists themselves say: ‘Dreams can be crushed into tears during the horrors of war. In the same way, as in these three sonatas by Ravel, Poulenc and Prokofiev, music has the ability to make us day-dream and to recall our tears and strong emotions.’