“Suicide in an Airplane” is one of American composer Leo Ornstein’s most distinctive and iconoclastic pieces. Written around or after the conclusion of World War One, the composition is said to have been inspired by a story of an airman dooming himself to a fiery death by deliberately crashing his own plane to the ground. This heavily mechanical piece is among his early works that were broadly labeled as “Futurist”.

Much of the piece consists of an ominous tremolo in the low registers that emulates the sound of an engine motor. The main melody in the right hand contains cold, piercing, blocks of cacophonous sevenths, creating an atmosphere of tension and anxiety. Once the suspenseful escalation reaches a brutal climax, making heavy use of all registers of the piano, the original themes return and fade away.


Date: 1918 or 1919
Catalogue: Severo Ornstein 6
Performer: Daniele Lombardi on piano


Note: This channel does not own the score or audio, and they are only used for non-commercial purposes.

Score: Woodside, CA: Poon Hill Press, 1990. Catalog S-006
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