For the author, a spring evening in Napoli spent playing the piano among friends led to the critical insight that "twentieth-century generations had not only been misguided, but musically misled." The sonatas of composer Giovanni Rutini played that night challenged the musical orthodoxy that relegates that early-Classical Italian influence upon high-Classical instrumental styles to comparatively minor position of musical importance. This book, which includes translations of Rutini's letters and other writings, explores how Rutini's experimental work in sonata-allegra formal procedures played a significant role in the history of music.