In 1871 Camille Saint-Saëns and Gabriel Fauré founded the National Society of Music in order to give contemporary composers the opportunity to bring their works to a wider audience, be it chamber music, works for symphony orchestra or opera. Thirty years after the publication of Chopin’s Sonata for Cello and Piano, Saint-Saëns adopted an innovative style for his, by beginning his composition with a slow movement. He took inspiration from a tune that he had improvised on the organ, on the occasion of a memorial service held in honour of a friend of his, who died in 1871 during the Paris Commune. Saint-Saëns finally composed a wide-ranging, dramatic slow movement with several variations. This work came to be a sort of model for French composers of the period, along with César Franck’s famous sonata for violin and piano. Why have we included both the sonatas of Gabriel Fauré and Gabriel Pierné on this disc? Apart from the first name, Gabriel, that they share, the fact that they both composed during their summer vacation and that they both chose André Hekking to debut their sonatas, these two artists and their respective sonatas have much in common.