Elliot Weisgarber’s Piano Sonata No. 3 was written in Greensboro, North Carolina for his friend and colleague Robert Darnell between May 28 and July 9, 1955.

The Sonata matches in difficulty Darnell’s gigantic technique and musicianship. It is a significant work, intense, powerful and meticulously composed, with moments of lyricism emerging from within the turbulent and highly chromatic framework.

Robert Darnell loved the Sonata and performed it several times including Elliot’s New York City debut in 1956. “To say I am excited with the sonata you have written for me would be putting it mildly. I have covered it thoroughly and can truthfully say that I feel it to be a first class work in every detail. The unity is really enormous tho not obvious or bare-faced and the whole piece has a biting drive and will that is made even more effective by the powerful tragedy concealed within the Epilogo. No musician could fail to be moved at having a work of this character and perceptivity written for him….” [Robert Darnell to Elliot Weisgarber, July 1955]

The music’s inherent excitement is greatly enhanced by allowing crescendi to accelerate, and by applying great latitude in the use of rubato in the slow movement.