Another relatively youthful work, this sonata was composed immediately after graduating from the Paris Conservatory and immediately prior to the seminal Octet. It is the first work which the composer himself believed to have been fully representative of the voice he was developing and reveals not only his well-developed technical skills but also the increasingly expressive nature of his melodic development. Written in a mere two weeks on themes which had apparently been running through his mind for three years or more, it represents a massive leap forward, qualitatively, from what had gone before. As a turning point en route to the later, larger-scale chamber works, it is an excellent example of Enescu's characteristic monody and evokes a mood of impressionism with distinct Ravelian and Debussian references. The Romanian sense of the music is achieved through use of the Aeolian mode, a common thread uniting much Moldavian folk music.

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