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The recorder sonata was composed for a close friend, Gillian Stead, while a studnet at the University of Hull.The first movement follows the pattern of classical sonata form, including a conventional modulation to the dominant for a second subject, but omits a development section. The slow movement mixes typical classical figures with some unorthodox features (a few parallel fifths and a quintuple metre). The finale is in the relative minor, which is unusual in the classical period, although a well-known exception in Mozart's Piano Sonata K 331. It also contains one of two anachronistic features, such as an occasional modal or extended harmony. It was not the composer's intention to offer a historically accuration replication of the classical style. The descant recorder, of course, sounds an octave higher than written.