Piano Richter, the first woman to earn a degree in composition at Juilliard and a student of Vincent Persichetti, wrote her Sonata for Piano in 1954. In an interview with Bruce Duffie, she recalls that the Sonata originally "started off at the fast part and didn't seem right," so she found herself revisiting the work and adding "a big, long, slow introduction" (against the advice of her publisher, Carl Fischer Music). This seems to have worked, as the Sonata has again and recently been recorded by pianist Richard Zimdars on his 2012 album, Persichetti and Pupils. For advanced pianists.