In undertaking his Piano Sonata No. 2 (1946), Roger Sessions had originally intended to compose a short work of modest technical demands; soon, however, he realized that his material called for the more expansive approach that eventually shaped the Sonata. The work was written during the lengthy period of transition between the composer's extended chromatic (yet fundamentally tonal) style and his adoption twelve-tone techniques. The tonal scheme of the first movement, for instance (as well as that of the entire Sonata) is deliberately ambiguous, while the predominance and organization of seconds and thirds as harmonic intervals clearly forecast Sessions' imminent twelve-tone period. The Second Sonata is stark and harmonically severe, further requiring a performer with great contrapuntal awareness.

The first of the work's three movements, Allegro con fuoco, contains two principal themes in a configuration modeled after sonata form. The middle movement resembles an ABA form, though upon its return the "A" material is significantly modified. The third movement (Misurato e pesante) concludes the Sonata with bitter, hateful fervor; Sessions later indicated that his disgust for the Nazi regime influenced the movement's character. This underlying emotional scheme, in fact, serves to reconcile what appear to be the movement's two disparate themes. Though Sessions gives little indication of movement's harmonic direction until the very last bars, the Sonata ends firmly in C major.

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