Joachim Raff enjoyed enormous prestige with a reputation as Germanys leading symphonist of his time. He also wrote music for the violin, an instrument he had mastered when young, and for which he wrote with great sympathy. The enduring success of his first two sonatas (8.573841) prompted him to write three more: the charming, genial and joyous Sonata in D major, the symphonically conceived Sonata in G minor which, uniquely for Raffs violin works, is cast in a single movement, and a Sonata in C minor that, while often melancholic in tone, is still suffused with his trademark lyricism.