Back on June 6th, I made a bunch of pretty casual posts about writing a new musical based on the barricade part of Les Mis. To be honest, I didnât take myself seriously in that moment because even if the music turned out ok, the libretto would almost certainly be a dumpster fire; Iâm not a natural at poetry at all. But then I actually composed music for a show and itâs a whole thing now??? Iâm wrapping up my rough draft right now.
The current title is Revolutions Are Not Built of Paving Stones, which is based on Enjolrasâs âhorizon that is visible from the top of the barricadeâ speech (which is a whole song in the show because how could I not?). It uses a cast of 10 people (every ami +Marius), and a undefined amount of national guardsmen. Everyone plays multiple characters, especially going into the second act, which deals with what happens after the barricade, but more on that later.
Instrumentation (for those who care) is piano, string quartet, two flutes, clarinet in Bb, bassoon, and a singular⢠percussionist. This is really small for a pit band, but Iâm pretty hellbent on having an actual ensemble when this hopefully gets performed next year at some point, so I kept it to a reachable size. As a whole, the musical is quite small. Itâs probably about an hour long, but itâs dense, if that makes sense.
Itâs really hard for me to know exactly what to write about a whole music, and I certainly have never finished a project this substantial until now, so Iâm just gonna list things I think are cool about it:
I wrote a madrigal for the wedding scene, and Iâve never done fifth species counterpoint so hard in my life.
I always found the Le Cabuc interaction interesting, and thereâs a musical number for that
Do you permit it? (Need I say more?)
Separate Jehan death scene and yes it is super sad(also, Jehan is played by the lead soprano, who also plays Cosette, Gavroche, and someone else Iâm leaving as a surprise)
The âfive less, one moreâ song slaps pretty hard imo
Marius sees ghosts, mostly in the second act, but also once in the first act (itâs his dad)
I definitely have not included everything I ought to have in this post, but the basic idea of it this: i did a whole musical thingy and im gonna try my darndest to get it performed and recorded.
