The manuscript of this hitherto unpublished piece, completed on 17th October 1913, has the word ‘Sonata’ centred at the top of the first page, and on the left-hand side of the next line: ‘No 2 Scherzo’, the numeral clearly referring to the movement rather than to the work as a whole. The rest of the sonata (if it ever existed) is no longer extant, though, since it is in the relative major (F), there may be some connection with Bax’s lost Sonata in D minor, the first movement of which was performed by Myra Hess at the Æolian Hall in London on 2nd June 1911 as part of the Fourth Congress of the International Musical Society; but there is no evidence to confirm this connection or to suggest that the Scherzo was ever played in public during Bax’s lifetime. Its first known performance was given, from a copy of the manuscript, by Malcolm Binns in Studio No 1, Abbey Road, on 9th September 1981 as part of a recording session for Pavilion Records (issued on LP SHE 565).
