Secret Sonata was commissioned and first performed by the flautist Jennifer Stinton, who gave the first performance with Scott Mitchell at the Purcell Room on 2nd March 1987. The piece was the first work that I composed on my return to England after completing postgraduate studies at the Akademia Muzyczna in Krakòw and was therefore originally given the title Polish Retrospect. This was universally condemned and at the work’s first performance the title was changed to Elegy. I wrote a programme note stating that the title marked ‘the passing of a period in my life, rather than a lament for a particular person’. The work was subsequently played on a number of occasions but I never felt entirely happy with the title and said as much in a pre-concert talk about nine years ago. I stated that I felt I had really written a single movement duo sonata but didn’t wish at the time to own up to it! The composer and pianist Michael Finnissy, who was in the audience suggested that I should therefore call the work Secret Sonata and so, about fifteen years after the work’s completion, I finally arrived at the title I was looking for!