Favre, Antoine: Six sonatas, volume 1 (Nos. 1–3)

In this first volume Sonata No. 1, in E minor, opens with a lively movement full of motivic play between violin and continuo. It continues with a fleet corrente-style movement, then a slow movement followed by a delightful French-like gavotte with continuous running quavers in the bass. The piece ends with a kind of gigue in a strongly contrapuntal style. Sonata No. 2, in F major, begins with a slowish movement (puzzlingly headed ‘Lentement et animé’) and is followed by a movement resembling an Italian allemanda, in which the bass viol (or cello) twice detaches itself from the continuo. Next comes a movement in the style of a slow air tendre, which is succeeded by a breezy giga-like movement and a concluding contrapuntal allegro that is almost, though not quite, a fugue. Sonata No. 3, in B minor, opens with a slow, richly harmonized movement and continues with a quick movement in the style of the Italian concerto, which French composers had enthusiastically begun to imitate in the 1720s. A slow French sarabande follows, then a French gavotte enclosing an alternate section in B major, and the sonata ends with a vigorous contrapuntal gigue.