The piano sonata represented an opportunity for Dutilleux to experiment with an ambitious, large-scale project, something that his previous commissioned works did not permit. In his own words: "I wanted to move gradually towards working in larger forms, and not to be satisfied with short pieces – to get away, if you like, from a way of writing that was 'typically French' ". The piece combines two concerns typical of Dutilleux's mature works: formal rigour and harmonic research. Its themes are ambiguous, never completely modal or tonal.The Solo Piano Works of Henri Dutilleux: A Stylistics Analysis, Rosemarie Suniga, University of South Carolina, 2011.
