Arnold Bax composed his Piano Sonata in E-flat in 1921. It is the original version of Bax's First Symphony and was not performed in public or published in the composer's lifetime. Movements The sonata is in three movements and lasts approximately 35 minutes. Allegro moderato e feroce — molto cantabile The fortissimo opening motif and a stamping theme which follows a few bars later was called by one commentator "a Promethean fist" shaking at heaven; both these musical features are used continually in this and the third movement, with the opening motif elaborated into the first subject proper upon its restatement. Bax biographer and authority Lewis Foreman writes, "A rhythmic figure drives the music until the mood becomes calmer and soon the second subject tune appears which Bax asks to be played 'clear and sweet' and followed by a pendant 'warm and flowing.'" This episode is only an interlude before the development which the composer says "seems to express more emphatically the idea of strife." Foreman continues, "The rhythmic idea which followed the second subject returns and drives the music on over a great span of frenetic action. Eventually in music of great calm the second subject returns.... [T]he end comes with a return of fast-running music and a marching statement of the first theme." Lento con molto espressione The mood for this movement is set with flowing arpeggios over which a romantic wide-spanning theme is floated. Textures such as these proliferate, contrasting strongly with the outer movements. A continually repeated falling figure acts as an accompaniment, giving an overall impression of stillness. At the marking Molto tranquillo, this figure shifts to the right hand and the theme to the left hand. The music climaxes with frenetic arpeggios in the right hand as the bass slips lower down the keyboard and the main theme is grandly sounded in chords written over four staves. The music dies away with the return of the repeated figure. Scherzo — Finale (Largamente — Allegro molto vivace) Foreman writes, "The opening theme of the first movement returns to launch the third, now more exultantly, after which scherzando figures dart over the keyboard and the main theme rushes up energetically from the bass. It is followed by the reappearance of the secondary first subject theme from the first movement. The second subject idea Bax described as 'freakish, almost grotesque.' These are now worked extensively, with the