Among all of piano compositions by Bohuslav Martinů, which consists of dozens of pieces, we can find only one Sonata for piano, H 350. Martinů composed it in 1954 for Rudolf Serkin, professor of piano at the Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia. Martinů promised him a sonata but took a long time to write it, and once he delivered it, Professor Serkin kept postponing its performance. Therefore the sonata premiered in Brno on December 3, 1957, performed by Eliška Nováková, the wife of Martinů's student Jan Novák. However, its premiere preceded that by Rodelf Serkin merely for one day since he performed this composition on December 4, 1957 in New York.
Martinů composed this sonata in November and December 1954 in Nice within the creative spell of Fantaisies symphoniques, H 343 (Symphony No. 6) and Incantation, H 358 (Piano Concerto No. 4). Like these compositions, Sonata for Piano has a fantasy character. Despite the free wheeling defile of musical ideas in all three movements, we can find a three-part formal structure in each of them. The main thematic idea comes back in a transformed way and closes the given movement. The harmonic structure moves within extended tonality above all in the third movement, while polytonal planes will find their firm root in the relevant tonic chord. This sonata rich in thought, profound and technically demanding represents one of the peaks of Bohuslav Martinů's piano compositions.
Sandra Bergmannová, programme of the Bohuslav Martinů Festival's concert, December 11, 2000