Waterhouse composed the viola sonata in the winter 2012/13 on a commission of violist Hana Gubenko and her husband, pianist Timon Altwegg, who premiered it at the Gasteig in Munich on 3 February 2013, along with the piano quartets No.

They played it several times, and recorded it in 2015, along with other music for viola and piano by Aaron Yalom (1918–2002), Ernst Levy and his son Frank Ezra Lévy (born 1930).

[1] A reviewer titled "Die Bratsche in jüdischer Klage"[2] (The viola in Jewish lament) and noted the works' melancholy and intense warm sound, a broad range of tone colours, and virtuoso passages.

They performed it in 2014 at the Gasteig, along with Zeichenstaub and chamber music by Mozart and Beethoven, and at a composer portrait concert in Gilching in 2016, along with Epitaphium, among others.

A review of the Süddeutsche Zeitung notes the work's "urgency and emotional tension" ("Eindringlichkeit und emotionale Spannung").