The sonata was composed between June and December 1932 during a trip to Europe as Barber was finishing his studies at the Curtis Institute of Music. The score is dedicated to Barber's composition teacher, Rosario Scalero, and was officially premiered on 5 March 1933 with the composer at the piano and his friend and colleague Orlando Cole as cellist, at a concert of the League of Composers in New York City (Heyman 1992, 11011, 114). Together with the Music for a Scene from Shelley, Op. 7, this sonata won both a Pulitzer travel stipend and the Prix de Rome of the American Academy in Rome in 1935 (Friedewald 1957, 166; Pleasants 1935). - Wikipedia.