One of the very few pieces Enescu composed during the 1920s, this work comes in the middle of the period occupied chiefly by the creation of Oedipe. It is dedicated to Emile Frey, a Swiss pianist friend from Enescu's early Paris days, to whom he had promised a sonata as early as 1906. It demands a high degree of technical proficiency from the performer. Some of the composer's more esoteric requests include differing attack and dynamics in the same hand simultaneously!

Atmospheric and original, the sonata is strongly reminiscent of the 1913-16 Pièces Impromptues—especially the Carillon Nocturne—and is entirely distinctive despite being somewhat flavored by references to Ravel, Debussy and Stravinsky. The middle movement in particular is marked by carefully structured dissonance, leading to a rebellious finale of considerable ferocity.

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