One day, when I took my young son to school, I noticed an African labourer digging a trench with a pick ax while singing a work song. I was in too much of a hurry to talk to him then, and decided to approach him later with questions about him, as well as the song. But alas, when I arrived again, the trench was covered and he was gone. As I have already completed two movements of this work, I decided to incorporate the song in the remaining movements. In movements three and four, I used fragments of the song, but, for the first time, the song in its complete form at the beginning of the finale.

Stefans Grové