Ethel Bartlett and Rae Robertson decided to form a piano duo in 1928, not long after their marriage. One of the first composers from whom they requested new music to perform was Arnold Bax, who quickly responded with the short works The Poisoned Fountain and The Devil That Tempted St. Anthony. The following year Bax composed, and dedicated to them, a genial Sonata for two pianos that they premiered at the Music Club, Westminster, on December 10, 1929. In 1930 Bartlett and Robertson played the Sonata frequently and to great acclaim during a tour of America. They also recorded the Sonata, as well as other Bax compositions, for the National Gramophonic Society.

Bax wrote the Sonata around the same time he was working on his Symphony No. 3; both works, with their relatively relaxed tone and feeling of well being, likely reflect Bax's joy in his increasingly close relationship with Mary Gleaves. The Sonata opens, as the score describes it, "in a languorous sun-stained mood." The lyrical main theme creates the atmosphere, building later to an aggressive climax. Livelier music follows, music that would be joyous except for a constant undercurrent of anxiety. The languorous opening mood then returns, the main theme now decorated by trills. The peaceful second movement, marked Lento espressivo, is one of Bax's many portraits of the sea. Repeating figures and rippling gestures set the watery ambiance. The seas turn turbulent in a couple of big climaxes, but calm again with gently drifting chords. There is a bit of an Irish feeling to the melodies that dominates the rough-and-tumble, frenzied dance that is the final movement. After some development, a full-throated statement of the main theme of the first movement bursts forth, leading into a grand coda.

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