Join San Jose State Professor Gwendolyn Mok, one of the remaining heirs to Ravel's pianism via her late teacher Vlado Perlemuter, in this lesson on the Sonatine. One of Ravel's more approachable works, the first movement nevertheless poses serious physical and musical challenges to the student. Mok breaks each down in turn, showing how to choreograph the awkward hand positions required to execute the opening while drawing your attention to the different layers and motives of the piece – especially the ubiquitous descending "Maman" motive – and giving insights on how to realize Ravel's restrained aesthetic through subtle acts of touch and timing.

Ravel loved the minuet genre, writing several standalone minuets as well as including them in larger multi-movement works such as Le Tombeau de Couperin and this second movement of his Sonatine. Gwendolyn Mok shows how to curate this early 20th-century portrait of a quaint courtly dance form in your fingers, drawing your attention to details of articulation, voicing, and line. By controlling dynamics, touch, and pedal, Mok reveals how to bring this exquisite piece of neoclassicism to life.

Ravel's Sonatine ends in a flourish – not only in the final bars, but in the entire last movement. Indeed, Ravel chose an animated study in perpetual motion to conclude his little three-movement sonata, which demands a particular kind of temperament and touch from the pianist. Gwendolyn Mok offers smart practice tips that will coordinate your fingers with the contour of the rapid sixteenths while articulating the repeated trumpet calls. Always attentive to Ravel's craftsmanship, Mok traces the motivic threads that tie the three movements together, and shows how the composer brings the work's themes and drama to a culmination point in this thrilling finale.