The composer has written the following regarding his own sonata:

"Ever since I was small I have been fascinated by two musical sounds more than any other; the voice and the violin. I cannot sing - although I have perfect pitch, a gift that is more a curse than a blessing, I cannot seem to get my voice to agree with what my ear tells me is right - and I have never shown aptitude for any other instrument than the piano. When I was about 11 we trundled out my grandfather's imitation Stradivarius and I took a few not very successful lessons; when the violin was stolen out of the back seat of my fathers' Buick, that was the end of it.

"However, I had the wonderful luck about that time to get to know a practicing violinist well and, through him, the violin literature intimately. Gene Nastri, who was then string and orchestral director for the schools of Everett, Washington, was kind enough to play through the little violin and piano tunes I wrote for him, interspersed with long reading sessions of the Beethoven and Mozart violin sonatas, and much else. I can't think of a better way for a non-player to find out about the history and psychology of that instrument than what Gene afforded me, and I shall always be in his debt.

"Learning to write for the violin, as well as for the voice, is a lifelong occupation. The composer needs to know how to interact with the performer in both these cases, perhaps more than with any other type of musician. He or she may propose, but the performer disposes. Subtleties of phrasing and nuance can only be partially prescribed by the composer, but one must prescribe, knowing that the performer will change many details but not the spirit.

"The McKim fund of the Library of congress had given Sergiu Luca a commission for me - a piece for us to play - and that June I began the Second Sonata (the First is a juvenile effort that I still like and want to revise someday) in Ann Arbor and New York. While working on the Sonata at Aspen later that summer, I received a newspaper clipping and a note that Joe Venuti had died, just before he was to play at chamber Music Northwest in Portland. The Second Sonata became in part a farewell to Joe; although there is little in it that refers directly to his playing style, it is necessary for the violinist to know, and have well rooted in the ear, the special world of Venuti.

"The first movement, Summer Dreams, is built on a modified blues format, with a contrasting middle section. Brutal, fast, which succeeds it, is constructed out of a small intervallic cell, and the following Adagio, free and recitative in style, ends with a hymn like passage, segueing directly into the final movement, In Memory of Joe Venuti. The work was premiered on January 12, 1979, at the Library of Congress's Coolidge auditorium, by Sergiu and myself."