Originally planned only as a little duo for violin and piano, the composition grew into a sonata in autumn 1885. The first performances were more than disillusioning for Saint-Saëns, as the violinists came to grief with its virtuosic demands, in particular those of the finale. He told his publisher that it would be called “the hippogriffsonata”, implying that the violin part could only be played by a mystical figure.

Since then the sonata has, by and large, lost its horrors and is now one of ...