I completed the first draft of my third symphony in the summer of 1962. The draft was not completed until late that year and was influenced in no small part by the Cuban Missile Crises that took place in October and November of that year. While not programmatic in any sense of that word, the pathos of this music and the ultimate peaceful resolution of the crises certainly affected my composing. Subsequent revisions of this work over the next forty or so years produced the final form represented here (2004). As with all Symphony No. 3 has five movements in a vaguely palindrome form.