Sonatine is a piano work written by Maurice Ravel. He wrote the first movement for a competition sponsored by the Weekly Critical Review magazine after being encouraged by a close friend who was a contributor to that publication. Ravel was the only entrant. His Sonatine was disqualified, however, for being a few bars too long. The competition was ultimately cancelled as the magazine was close to bankruptcy at the time. Two years later, Ravel completed the second and third movements and the complete sonatine was published shortly after. The Sonatine was first performed in 1906 by Mme Paule de Lestang. Shortly afterwards it received its Paris premiere, where it was played by Gabriel Grovlez. The work was dedicated to Ida and Cipa Godebski; he later dedicated his Ma mère l'oye suite to their children. Although the piece is titled Sonatine rather than 'Sonata', the diminutive refers to the modest length of the piece and not to any simplicity, either in structure or ease of execution. Indeed, shortly after the Lyons performance, Ravel wrote that although he was pleased with the public reception, he was worried about the difficult nature of his piece. Although Ravel did record a piano roll of the first two movements, he felt unable to play the technical third movement and frequently left it out while playing concerts in America in the late 1920s.
