/ Composer

Program Notes

The Night in Lisbon is considered to be one of the best works of German novelist Erich Maria Remarque. After reading this masterpiece, I was so overwhelmed by emotion that I had to express my feelings through music.

The setting of the novel is a single night in Lisbon, where the protagonist named Schwartz is willing to give up his visa to America for his story to be heard by an unnamed refugee. The story is his fleeing from Nazi Germany with his wife, their lives as refugees in constant fear, and their long and arduous trek through Europe to Portugal. However, his wife, Helen, dies unexpectedly after all the hardships that they had gone through. Schwartz has nothing left to live for, having given up his hope for a new life.

In creating this piece, I strove to convey the loneliness, danger, and humiliation that Schwartz must have felt while fleeing Germany. I use a theme with a harp, vibraphone, and wind instruments throughout to reflect the guiding feeling of the novel. Another theme that I used is a militaristic march to emphasize the indifference to the human suffering, signifying the evil of the Nazi powers. A third theme is a love theme, that is strained but passionate, contrasting the protagonists’ intimacy with the utter chaos around them.

The Night in Lisbon conveys the important message of the human capacity for selflessness under extreme conditions.

I choose to write a film score-like music to convey the visuals of the storyline, intertwining leitmotifs throughout the piece.