Sterndale Bennett, who was a friend of Mendelssohn and Schumann, was Principal of the Royal Academy of Music in the mid-19th century. This piece is described as being "After his Piano Sonata, Op. 46, The Maid of Orleans". A certain passage in this Sonata seemed to Alan Bush so strikingly beautiful that he felt it a pity it should be embedded in a work which was hardly ever heard. Consequently he wrote this piece, which is based on material from the Sonata, without, however, breaking into a style different from that the composer in whose honour it was written.