This research project offers an investigation into the stylistic language of the piano sonatas of Harold Shapero (1920-2013)—a twentieth-century American composer who is recognized as a member of the “Stravinsky School,” particularly for his emulation of Stravinsky’s Neoclassical style. Within its consideration of Neoclassical elements in Shapero’s work, this project looks at Shapero’s synthesis of elements and features from the eighteenth, nineteenth, and twentieth centuries, including compositional features connected with Stravinsky, Beethoven, J. S. Bach and others. All of Shapero’s piano sonatas are considered in this study, including the Sonata for Piano Four Hands (1941), the Three Amateur Sonatas (1944), and the Piano Sonata in F Minor (1948). These piano sonatas allow for an investigation of Shapero’s stylistic features and illustrate the composer’s overall stylistic evolution. Some attention is given to connections between the piano sonatas. Shapero’s final Piano Sonata in F Minor represents a compositional culmination of his earlier sonatas, and anticipates features found in his later works
