Music in Toil until the old colours fade I
Before I completely forget it all, I thought I'd make a collection of the music that go with the different chapters of my latest fic.....
I'm a very music-oriented writer, in the sense that everything but the shortest ficlet is connected to a specific song/artist/style of music... Since this is the first musical verse I've ever written for, it was quite different to attempt this with Les Misérables, and I've fiddled around with versions more than I ever have before.
Throughout the fic, the Original French Concept Album and either the movie soundtrack and a low-quality copy of the movie (pirated because the small file-size stopped my comp from freezing up) more or less looped in the background constantly. Best way bar none to get into writing mood was to just listen through all my favorite songs =)
Behind - or beneath? - the music is also the poem, When Earth's Last Picture is Painted which I've read and re-read far too many times x_X Here, have an odd choir version of it too...
Chapter 1: Hope twisted and dried
The fourth time: Javert's Soliloquy and The Confrontation [Jackman, Crowe]. Javert's Suicide and The Confrontation [Alfie Boe, Norm Lewis]. The first for the sadness and depression, the second for the bubbling anger - why aren't I dead gdi? what more do I have to do? - that I tried to convey in the early chapters.
I also used Dites-moi ce qui se passe a lot, the French version of Fantine's arrest, because it just feels so snippy XD And, at this point Javert is both depressed, snippy and self-centered.
Listened a lot to Miłe panie, the Polish Lovely Ladies, too. While I adore the movie song and the scene had some very strong influences on the images of corruption and drowning, it was somehow a bit distracting when writing here. I think because I kept thinking of Fantine?
Lastly, the Complete Symphonic Recording version of Dog eats dog is my to-go "everything is horrible and anything I try is futile" song.
The seventh time: The scene where Javert drives Madeleine out of town? One hundred percent pure, undiluted Quast XD Especially his Confrontation and Stars. + Crowe's People's Court (Javert vs. The students) and the end of the CSR's Little People, because some lines were cut for the movie. Upon editing, I tried to add some more UST (idk if I managed) and for French rival-UST, there's not much that beats L'Assasymphonie. Just... give it a listen, okay? Trust me.
The death at the Thenardier's inn is written to the CSR versions of Master of the House (I love the customers' opening lines in that one). Might I take this moment to complain about all versions that give Madame T. a too horrible screechy voice? It hurts my ears, gdi. Also Rammstein because I kind of conditioned myself to write violence to Rammstein while in Hetalia; so have some Asche zu Asche.
Chapter Two: Come unto me and I will give you rest.
These scenes had the same group of musical cues; soothing music, mostly without words mixed with strings and dramatic classical pieces - lots of old favorites: The credits of the movie. Sono Kanojo no Higeko and Gakuen no Scarlet (for Madeleine's nobility ^_~) from the Utena soundtrack. One Republic's Secrets as performed by a one-man violin orchestra. A bunch of Mozart.
There's very little of actual Les Mis music here, because Actually Talking To Each Other isn't a thing in the movie *sigh* Some Noir et Blanc in the first, failed convo, but mostly just voiceless pieces.
If I had watched Master and Commander when outlining this scenes, you can bet that Boccherini's La Musica Notturna would have been in here, but now it didn't enter until I started editing. Where it firmly remained for almost all chapters because HOLY CRAP BUT I LOVE THAT PIECE SO MUCH. Just fyi.
Chapter three: To labour, heavy laden.
Here is Fantine's fall and Javert's along with her. Lovely Ladies - Polish, movie, several English versions. One more day (esp. movie version, those threads *shiver*), La Journée est finie. Anne Hathaway's angry I dreamed a dream - it's my favorite of the bunch, I think.
There's also multiple versions of Seeräuber-Jenny from the Threepenny Opera. I really love the Threepenny Opera, and it works interestingly against Les Mis. Contentwise, it's similar - based on the older work, The Begger's Opera- but thematically it's almost the opposite. Bitterness, hope and a dark sarcasm filling the lack of god. The finest for hearing an anger similar to my Fantine's is in this Italian version by Milva, Jenny dei Pirati.
I had a lot of fun writing Javert's miserable death at the Thenardier's inn, strange as it sounds. I think it's because I tried to imitate all the little thefts and schemes happening in the movie, and that's why the music got cheerfully horrible too? It's set to the movie Master of the House and more pieces from the Threepenny Opera: Das Moritat von Mackie Messer - a bastard cutthroat who could be Thenardier's brother in his levels of horrible - by Brecht, Milva (Italian) and Ella Fitzgerald's Mack the Knife.
But it also has bits from the movie's Look Down (prisoners + Paris), the Japanese Beggar's Look Down [though a different version from the one up on Youtube] and La Valse De La Fourberie. Because it is unfair - not just for Javert, but for all the people dying like him, forgotten and lonely and used badly in their last hours, and this anger comes through strongly in the crowd-song in Les Mis. (Little Cosette also got a proper hear-through of Castle on a Cloud, a song I often skip otherwise).
And now we're getting into the life where Javert spectacularly fucks up by cheating too much, and would've taken by the inquisition if this had taken place 200 years earlier. These lines:
He'd rushed up the stairs, laughing with more than a little madness, and thrown the shutters open as soon as he reached the top of the tower. Air! Fresh, sweet air!
are very much Omae no XXX de Ten wo Tsuke... from Gurren Lagan because it's really all about reaching the free, unhindered sky. For a moment, at least.
Javert threatening the Thenardier's gets both the movies short Wedding Chorale/Beggars at the Feast [the only place they get part of what they deserve and it's from Marius???] and the 25th's Intervention. Because Norm Lewis <3
The trip to the prison and the drowning is to Valjean and Javert's Soliloquy(s) from the movie, because they're finally starting to "sing" the same song even if things are going to hell. And Rammstein's Ohne dich, because there is no better song to write manly pining... Well, maybe, but not to my id.
Chapter 4; The yoke easy, the burden never light
The Rooftop Scene in Paris. Of course this is Stars! Can't write a Javert-fic without a bit of stargazing, now can I? ;) I've lifted the concept of this scene whole from that song, and I spent ages with Russel Crowe's movie version/piano version and just reading and mulling over the lyrics.
The other versions I heavily tried to use are Reinhard Brussman's Sterne, 'cuz I have a thing for German okay, and the 17 Valjeans' version of Do you hear the people sing? because I kind of love that song and it felt right (whoo, great reason). I think it also captures the multi-faceted Paris to me, and feels less connected to the rebels than the one-language versions.
The scene with Fantine (stolen silver and Thenardragons) are the finale/reprise, because there's hope after suffering etc. Aaaand then Javert is a silly ass towards Valjean, so cue all the Confrontations once again. Polish, English, movie etc.
Since this is already tl;dr and I haven't posted anything more to AO3, let's just stop there. Huh. Now I might just remember some of this in X months, when I look at a scene and go "hmm I wonder what I was aiming for there?