Leoš Janáček (1854-1928) wrote his violin sonata in 1914, he did, however, revise it several times before its first performance in 1921. The composer, a dedicated Czech nationalist and pan slavist, remembers "...in the 1914 Sonata for violin and piano I could just about hear sound of the steel clashing in my troubled head..." the people of Moravia were waiting to be liberated by the Russians at the beginning of the First World War and the work is full of suspense and atmosphere. The first performance was given by violinist František Kudláček and pianist Jaroslav Kvapil on 24 April 1922 at a concert of new Moravian music organized by the Young Composer's Club in Brno. Interesting to note that the first performance abroad was in Frankfurt in 1923, violinist was the composer Paul Hindemith.

Here the performers are Jana Vlachova violin and Frantisek Maly piano

The work is in four relatively short and very tightly structured movements:

III. Allegretto

In this three-part Allegretto the piano articulates a nervous folk-like melody over a left hand trills as the violin interjects descending scales that seem at odds with it, ending abruptly with three hard chords ; the violin and piano then share a melodious passage that works its way hesitantly to a lyrical climax before the return of the opening material first lightly in pizzicato on the violin, the only moment where the violin actually plays the folk-like theme, and then staccato on the piano before a full da capo.