The composition of the "Troisième Sonate" was begun by Pierre Boulez in 1957 and continued until 1963, when he stopped working on it for various reasons. Some parts are fully completed, while others remained incomplete. The sonata was supposed to include five movements called "formants": 1st Antiphonie, 2nd Trope, 3rd Constellation - Miroir, 4th Verse and 5th Séquence.

The first movement "Antiphonie" exists only in an incomplete form. The four existing parts are "Antiphonie I", "Antiphonie I...