Perhaps the greatest source of wonder in Liszt's life was that he composed anything at all, let alone anything of lasting greatness. The man who, from an early age, had crisscrossed Europe as the greatest travelling virtuoso, providing, with the onset of puberty, much material for gossip columns, might have been forgiven for taking the Wildean view, ‘My art is my life’, and leaving it at that. Even after he settled down in Weimar in 1848, to devote himself to composition, his existence was scarcely less hectic, and the B minor Sonata, ‘finished 2nd February 1853’ according to Liszt's manuscript note, was merely one of a maelstrom of activities. Although he had made at least two preliminary sketches of themes for the Sonata – one of the opening two motifs in 1851, another of the beginning of the Andante sostenuto in 1849 – it is likely that the main compositional work was started in the latter part of 1852.

Exactly how Liszt could have found the time to compose is difficult to imagine. In June 1852 he had conducted two concerts at the Ballenstedt-am-Harz music festival, the programmes including Beethoven's Ninth Symphony and Berlioz's Harold in Italy. In September he conducted Verdi's Ernani. A Berlioz week in Weimar was scheduled for November, when the Romeo and Juliet Symphony, the Damnation of Faust and Benvenuto Cellini were performed. Looming on the horizon after this was a Wagner festival for February 1853, by which time The Flying Dutchman, Tannhäuser and Lohengrin had to be fully rehearsed. If this immersion in some of the most difficult avant-garde music were not enough, Liszt's private life was also running less than smoothly.