Somewhere near the time he left California (where he had lived most of his life) Lou Harrison (born in Portland, Oregon in 1917) wrote these six instrumental sonatas for piano or harpsichord.

He called them "Mission-style piece." Their general inspiration came from his "studies about and feelings for the land, peoples, and history of California," as he explained later. Their specific musical inspiration is the sonatas of Italian-born harpsichord composer Domenico Scarlatti, who wrote hundreds of works called sonatas, almost all of which are brief compositions written in a two-section form.

He recalls that in writing the sonatas he felt "the romance and geometry of impassioned Spain as well as the pastoral Indian imagery of native America in its Western life" and acknowledged the influence of Scarlatti and the contemporary Spanish composer Manuel de Falla, who was a pioneer in the revival of the harpsichord in the 1920s.

As is the case with Scarlatti's original keyboard sonatas, these six sonatas have been transcribed for plucked instruments, either guitar solo or guitar and harp as a duet. The Spanish elements in the music make these arrangements especially effective.

Harrison, who became interested in the tuning theories of just intonation some years after writing these sonatas, has authorized their performance and recording in an tuning system with "pure" fifths and thirds.

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