Lost at Home

“Lost at Home” reflects on the brutality and horrors of World War I. Inspired by Remarque's novel All Quiet on the Western Front, it is written in three parts, meant to illustrate the physical and mental state of the main character, Paul Baumer, in different areas of the book. 

The first section of “Lost at Home” portrays Paul in battle. Inspired by the style of postmodernist composers, I utilized a short quotation from Shostakovich’s Eleventh Symphony to represent Paul’s memories of the war. Noises from the battlefield, including gunshots and airplanes, imitated by snare drums and brass glissandi, give a vivid and overwhelming quality to this first section. 

The next part of “Lost at Home” portrays Paul at home on leave. A familiar melody, the theme from Johannes Brahms's Variations on a Theme by Haydn, sounds soothingly in the string section. This tranquil quality does not last, however. Memories of the battlefield haunt Paul, represented by sudden outbursts of the motif from the opening section. The music, as if uncertain or astray, wanders through different keys and eventually escalates to a climax, when the word “lost” appears, transformed alphabetically into the musical notes E-A-E-F, which are then repeated in chromatic transpositions. As the orchestra comes into unison, the piece transitions into the final section. 

This last part begins with the same musical material as the first, but it quickly moves to one final theme: another melody from Variations on a Theme by Haydn, but from one of the movements in B-flat minor. By using this familiar quotation, this final touch represents how at the end of All Quiet on the Western Front, Paul only feels familiar with war. He becomes veritably crushed, as the quote describes. The Brahms melody repeats and escalates, representing the never-ending nature of World War I, and the piece ends on a dramatic minor chord.