[1] Prokofiev completed the sonata on September 27, 1947 in the Moscow suburb of Nikolina Gora [ru], although thematic sketches exist from the mid-1940s.
[2] Upon introducing the score to its dedicatee, the composer said that he did not think the music was intended to create an effect, and that it was "not the sort of work to raise the roof of the Grand Hall [of the Moscow Conservatory].
[2] The sonata would not be debuted until April 21, 1951 at a concert in Moscow organized by the Union of Soviet Composers in commemoration of Prokofiev's birthday.
"[3] Writing seven years after Prokofiev's death, the French critic Claude Samuel praised the music as a "perfect achievement" and the "end of a quest for a 'new simplicity,'" although he also acknowledged that the "new tone" in this late work could be "attributed to the change in character of an ill and aging man, who has exchanged his youthful energy for a more contemplative attitude to life.
"[5] Boris Berman echoed that sentiment, speculating that "Prokofiev’s [deteriorating] health may also have contributed to the relative lack of sheer motoric energy so typical of his music.