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Composer Lee Hoiby’s moving tribute to fallen soldiers, Last Letter Home, based on the words of Pfc. Jesse A. Givens, was performed at Trinity Church on November 14, 2008. He shares his response to the performance here.

What is your name and what brings you to Trinity Church today?

I’m Lee Hoiby. I’m a composer and I’m here to witness one of the most moving things I think I’ve ever seen. It’s the armed services men singing a piece that I wrote, Last Letter Home , which is a memorial for their perished brethren and comrades in the army.

What was your experience of hearing it performed today?

I was completely absorbed and very moved, and I think there were some tears flowing down. It’s a very unusual text, a letter a soldier himself wrote before he died, wrote to his wife, which she wasn’t supposed to ever open unless he died. That means it’s already in a rare class of texts. The words by themselves are stirring and unforgettable and when you add music to them it just increases the feeling.

What gave you the idea for Last Letter Home?

It was sent to me by a dear friend who has sent me other things before. I was looking for a text at that moment to set to music for a chorus, an American male chorus called Cantus. My friend called me up and said, “I think I’ve found a text. I’m going to read it to you over the phone but I warn you I won’t be able to read it without choking up.” The text is so full of reality and immediacy and tragedy. Just the very words, “I’m so sorry.” He says it twice in his letter. There were phrases in it like—he says this to his unborn son--he says, “Bean, I never got to see you.” Words like that stick in the mind.

Do you see you work having social impact?

No. I never think of such a thing, but in this one instance, the Last Letter Home , I do think that it has power in it. Because of the reality of the text and because of the situation that the world is in right now and this country is in. I think it may have an influence in some corner or other, which will help to end the war, bring a little peace…I think if the right people hear it and use it the way the Army is using it, it will carry some influence in our lives.

What works of art have been most influential in your life?

That’s a very hard question as I’ve immersed myself my whole life in music, literature and poetry. I’ve just sort of soaked up everything over the last 80 years.

I keep thinking of Walt Whitman. There are five poems of his that I made into a song cycle called I Was There, which includes O Captain, My Captain , the famous dirge that Whitman wrote on the death of Lincoln. Those are five wonderful texts which encompass the whole life of Whitman.

I’m also drawn to paintings of the Duke of Urbino by Piero della Francesca. Let me explain it. The Duke of Urbino was blind in one eye so he had a surgeon cut off part of his nose so he could see peripherally, in case any assassin should ever approach him. That’s quite a remarkable thing by itself. But the Duke then asked Piero della Francesca to paint him. It’s really kind of a ghastly sight but Piero della Francesca went ahead and painted the Duke. You’ll see the Duke’s profile in several of the frescos at Urbino. I always carry that in my mind, thinking that if that great painter would do that, I should be willing to do anything anybody asks me. If they want my music, I will write anything they want. It was a humbling experience.

After today’s performance you were presented with a Commander’s Coin from the U.S. Army Military District of Washington. What can you tell us about it?

Major General Richard Rowe presented me with a rare coin that represents the government and the army, and it’s quite heavy and I choked up when he gave it to me—I’m a great choker-upper, you gathered that I guess. And that’s what I’ll carry home with me from this incredible moment and this wonderful church.