First performed the year it was composed, the sonata was published in 1878 by Ries & Erler in Germany, with a dedication to violinist Ludwig Straus.

[1][a] Stanford composed this work in 1877, shortly after returning to Trinity College, Cambridge, from a period abroad studying composition in Germany.

It is one of several works he completed that year, the others being settings of Psalm 46 and Keats poem, "La Belle Dame sans Merci", a now lost Overture for the Three Choirs Festival, and his first piece of chamber music, a cello sonata in A major.

[3] Following publication, the violinist Hermann Franke, a student of Joseph Joachim, took the work into his repertoire and performed it in a series of London-based concerts in 1882.

[9][10] Where the two authors differ is that Rodmell does not regard the sonata as a completely successful work, citing an anonymous review in the Oxford and Cambridge Undergraduate's Journal of the premier performance in which the reviewer expressed his belief that the concluding movements of the sonata were not up to the same standard as the first in support.