The Plague: For Speaker, Mixed Chorus and Orchestra

by Roberto Gerhard

The writing of the script which, the composer tells us, was the most arduous task in the composition of his new work, began to take shape when he realized that the various characters in the Camus novel were merely different facets of the storyteller. Thus, for the musical setting, only two needed to be the plague-stricken people (chorus) and the narrator (speaker). Gerhard finally took nine episodes from the novel as epitomizing its main 1 – Organ, 2 –The Outbreak, 3 – Impact on the population, 4 – The health committee, 5 – The closing of the town gates, 6 – The death of the girl, 7 – The burials, 8 – The boy’s agony, 9 – Abrupt ending of the epidemic, Epilogue. The force of the composer’s vision in the purely orchestral and choral sections casts its aura over the longest narrative stretches. In this of course the accompaniment to the speaker helps. Although as a rule pointillistic and extremely sparse, it maintains a continuity of musical experience by suspending animation; the part in fact performs the function of the more traditional recitative. At a first hearing the sheer interest of the developing narrative possibly encouraged a distorted view of its artistic importance. Several hearings convince one of the more general musical value of these sections, which take their place as one thread among others in the work’s musical development. The Plague exploits a very wide range of sonorities, from the usual advanced orchestral effects to a great many less determinate sounds such as slapping the double bass strings over the finger-board, scraping the piano strings with a nail file, and chattering and whispering passages for the chorus which Gerhard uses them with intense and immediately recognizable musicality. The successful integrating of these elements is one of the most interesting aspects of the score, and also encourages one to accept the speaker’s narrative on the same basis.

129 pages, Paperback

Published January 1, 1967