Tchaikovsky wrote his second piano sonata in 1878 and dedicated this Grande Sonate to the notable pianist Karl Klindworth, his colleague at the Moscow Conservatoire, who prepared the manuscript for publication. Your wonderful sonata really does not need any corrections by me, Klindworth wrote to the composer, though he did in fact make some changes to the notation, dynamics, variations in tempo, articulation and phrasing. Whereas all previous music editions have been based on the earliest published editions of Tchaikovsky's work, this new edition is the first to present the original version based on Tchaikovsky's autograph engraver's score, which is kept in the Glinka Museum in Moscow.
