The Viola Sonata was written in the winter of 1978/79. It is in one movement, cast in a dialectic sonata form, in which refrains and fragmentary elements of a slow movement are intervoven with those of a Scherzo. Most important, however, is the juxtaposition of the two con tra s ting elements and their gradual dramatic development in which they are increasingly transformed, interwining with one another until each has become the other, and taken the other’s shape. The work was written for Garth Knox and Jan Latham-Koenig as recognition of their efforts for the development of musical life of Montepulciano.

Hans Werner Henze