I have been engraving my earlier works that were still in manuscript, but I decided to leave one as is just because manuscript was such an important part of composition when I became a composer. This manuscript for this work was copied after revisions so it is clean and clear. Making changes to manuscript could be a nightmare. Whenever I get nostalgic about manuscript, I just remember about cutting and pasting or having to redo whole pages!
The Sonata for piano has a long and varied history. I wrote the first movement in 1968, when I was eighteen. It was the first music I wrote in college at the North Carolina School of the Arts. I completely balked at writing another movement, however, and it remained unfinished for several years. I wrote the last movement in Seattle while still attending the University of Washington, before moving to Phoenix. I wanted to combine the two movements with the Introduction and Movement (1972) as the second movement and work all the movements into a piano concerto. But this never materialized, and upon reconsideration, the second movement did not seem to fit with the other two movements. So I replaced it with a second movement that was more appropriate stylistically, and left the work as a solo sonata.
Because the music was written at different times and places, each movement has a different approach. The first movement is a rather standard Neo-classical sonata movement. The last movement has a rondo-type structure and is similar to the inner movements of my set of songs, Rain, Rain (1973) or the last movement of City Music (1974). The second movement uses a structure that I most notably exploited in the piano work Jazz Crystals (1974). The Piano Sonata was first performed by Walter Cosand at Arizona State University on 12/1/1975.
Score Video
Walter Cosand, piano - Arizona State University, Tempe AZ, 12/1/1975 1. Allegro con brio (11') starts at 00:07 2. Adagio con rubato (5') starts at 11:00 3. Allegro con spirito (6') starts at 16:00 Sheet music available from American Composers Edition https://composers.com/composers/glenn-stallcop/sonata-piano
Composition and Improvisation 