The discrepancy between the relative conservatism of Bauer's work versus the more experimental works she advocated in her writings such as "Twentieth Century Music" is partially explained by her publisher Arthur P. Schmidt's hesitation to support her early modernist inclinations in composition. Schmidt and Bauer, although maintaining a close relationship, notably disagreed on style. It is inferred that when Bauer's seven-year contract was about to expire, Schmidt requested that Bauer simplify her compositional style, as indicated by Bauer's response to his correspondence: “It is not stubbornness on my part not to write simple things. I can only write what I feel–and someday (soon I hope) I shall learn to do the big simple thing. I must do my work in steps–evolutionary, not revolutionary. I have so little time to write that naturally change of style is slow.” It is also possible that the experience of having her "Violin Sonata" (later published under the title "Fantasia Quasi Una Sonata") demoted from first to second place in the 1928 Society for the Publication of American Music competition expressly for its "modernist tendencies" led Bauer to adopt a comparatively conservative style of composition.