Ewazen composed this sonata, as with all of his compositions, at the
piano. He employed a compositional "trick" learned from Samuel Adler while
writing this sonata at the piano: use note-less stems to notate thirty or forty
measures to get the general sweep of the passage. This method also allows the
composer to improvise with rhythmic variations and new colors before committing
them to paper. "By the time I write it down (on paper) I am sure of what I want."35
The three-movement sonata is twenty minutes long.