Sikorski
‘The work was very important for my development because it was the first time I tried out the polystylistic style of writing that would later appear in many of my works. (1st and 3rd symphonies, concerto grosso, 3rd violin concerto, piano quintet etc.). For me, polystylism is a conscious playing out of stylistic differences, which results in a new musical space and once again enables a dynamic shaping of form (which had become impossible due to the overtaking of tonal thinking in the course of avant-garde development) - polystylistic elements have always existed as germs in all music, conscious polystylism was used by Mahler, Ives, Berg, Stravinsky, Shostakovich, as well as later by B. A. Zimmermann and Henri P. Zimmermann. A. Zimmermann and Henri Pousseur (the latter also formulated the theoretical foundations of polystylistics - without using this word - during the work on ‘Votre Faust’, to whom I owe the decisive impetus for this method). In ‘Quasi una Sonata’ it was also a questioning of the sonata form - it is built up by collapsing at the same time, it is a report on the impossibility of the sonata in the form of a sonata (later I also wrote a similar un-symphony). Then there are also no tempo indications for the three movements (sonata form, Adagio, Fuga) that merge into one another.’ (Alfred Schnittke)