I wrote my Piano Sonata no. 2 in 15 days during the period of March 8 to June 4, 2014, interspersed as per my norm with other mostly non-musical projects during that time. The sonata came quickly to me, the second movement being written in one 24-hour period. Dissatisfied with the ending of the work, however, I rewrote it in December of 2014. The Sonata was written especially for Lin-Yu Wang, a pianist the composer got to know through Kenneth Tse, who had engaged her to play the difficult piano part in my Sonata for Tenor Saxophone and Piano. Impressed with her musical and technical skills, I arranged for her to record all of my as-yet-unrecorded piano music, and wrote this new sonata with her in mind. The sonata is cast in four movements with a variety of styles employed, as is my wont. The first movement, in modified sonata-allegro form, is episodic in nature with several contrasting sections. The second is a whirlwind virtuosic showpiece, while the third movement is cast in a very freely Romantic style, full of lush sonorities. The final movement is essentially one long accelerando, and draws heavily from the rhythms of ragtime, although the tonality is only occasionally overt. More often it is rather chromatic, and at times even dissonant, in keeping with the composer's concepts of free tonality.
