(Also known in the composer's own 1987 chamber arrangement as Quasi una Sonata for violin & chamber orchestra)

Schnittke incurred the substantial disfavor of Soviet and Communist Party cultural authorities throughout the 1962 for writing in the Schoenberg-Webern "12-tone" or "serial" technique. By 1968 he was dissatisfied with the technique (which he now called a "train with too many passengers"). Starting a new violin sonata, he began to abandon it, but at first had a problem working without the aid of the constructive rules of the technique. So he combined them. The piece begins with a g minor chord that is immediately contradicted by a dissonant combination on the violin. This leads to a form that continuously contrasts tonal and serial (atonal) episodes. Within the single twenty-minute movement there are three main sections (which overlap): A sonata movement, an adagio, and a fugue.

The struggle between the two styles results in music that on the one hand builds a sonata structure and on the other tears it down. Schnittke called it "a report on the impossibility of a sonata in the form of a sonata." This led Schnittke to a new idea in his compositions, that he later dubbed "polystylism." In relationship to his work as a whole, it refers to his ability to use any style. More importantly as an aesthetic principle it refers to structuring pieces by opposing distinct styles. To the listener, this result, in the case of the instant sonata, in a complex yet understandable, dramatic composition. As the fountain of "polystylism" in Schnittke's music, it is one of his most important works.

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