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 Variations on an Original Theme in D Major, composed "during lunch breaks on an old piano in the music room at the American School of Tangier" (ca. 1982-83), is a piece whose youthful charm was inspired by African and international schoolchildren whom the composer heard at play when he sat down to work each day.