The ten pieces in the so-called Viennese Sketchbook were composed and repeatedly revised at different times between the years 1975 and 1991. Although all of these works openly pay tribute to Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven, and Schubert, Ford's treatment of traditional materials remains strikingly original, without a hint of academic constraint or self-conscious imitation.
The two minuets, originally scored for violin and cello as a wedding gift to their dedicatees, should always be played together: the gallant mood of the first contrasts tellingly with the mysterious, quasi-canonic counterpoint of the second.