Piano Piece No. 3

Programme Notes

Piano Piece No. 3 is based on the following anonymous poem left at the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington, D.C.:

Red stains the dirt
Red stains
The Fabric of my trousers
Spattered with your life
The warmth dissipating
Even as your torn lungs
Release their final breath-
Its father used in
Warning me to be alert.

Dust devils at my feet now
The terror of your destruction
Close at hand
I turn and fire
To survive
To rent gashes in yellow skin
Like those burned on my eyes.

The poem vividly portrays the experience of war from a soldier’s perspective. This inspired me to incorporate other non-musical elements into the fixed electronics. I used audio clips from the 1991 Iraq War, including the relentless rumble of bombardments, a recorded message from an American POW, and excerpts from a speech by then-U.S. President George H.W. Bush.

– Frank Horvat