This work nearly had me kicked out of the Harvard doctoral program. It received the loudest ovation of the evening at its premiere at the university’s Paine Hall. The following day I was summoned before a committee to determine if I was worthy to remain in the program for the sin of composing such an offensive trifle. At this time, serialism-atonality was the reigning stylistic ideology. A tonal neoclassic work was at best a juvenile experiment. The first violinist was specifically queried as to why he agreed to play my piece. He responded that he thought it was a terrific work and fun to play. Mystified, the committee essentially shrugged their shoulders and placed me on probation.

War Piece is a perky three movement sardonic perspective to one of man's favorite pastimes—gruesome warfare. It was my response to the horrors in Central American revolution and the manipulative superpower politics that culminated in the Iran-Contra affair. The neoclassic, perhaps Prokofievian flavor suggests toy soldiers in the first movement Battle. The trumpet elegy in the second movement Funeral Plain introduces a more sober mood. But then macabre exuberance returns in the third movement’s Crows and Flies, a scavenger's holiday.