Uploaded July 2025 | Updated September 2026, 3 weeks ago

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24601: A Les Misérables Medley

Music by Claude-Michel Schönberg
Arranged by John Owen Weber ′26

Conducted by Mitchell Dubin ′25
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ABOUT THE WORK

“The blood of the martyrs will water the meadows of France!”

Les Misérables, published in 1862 and the product of over a decade of Victor Hugo’s labor, was first known as an iconic book which rendered French politics and literature forever changed. Since then, this tragedy has seen itself retold in a range of mediums; the original musical written in French by Alain Boublil and Claude-Michel Schönberg in 1978 was at first nothing but an almost-unknown work of art, shown on stages which lacked the tradition of musical theater to support it. It wasn’t until 1985 that the English translation by Herbert Kretzmer that many know today first opened in London; this is the version which found immense support from international audiences, and was brought to Broadway in 1987. This beloved musical adds volumes of charm, hope, and passion to Hugo’s story depicting the misérables of France.

The plot of the musical adaptation stays true to the overarching plot of Hugo’s novel; prisoner number 24601, known as Jean Valjean, is granted his freedom at the start of the story, but spends his life running from the police inspector Javert, who is determined to return him to prison. Post-imprisonment, Valjean has committed his life to caring for Cosette, the only child of an impoverished villager named Fantine, to whom Jean became indebted in the years following his release. Much of the show takes place during the June Rebellion of 1832 (the Paris Uprising), a revolt which lasted two days, instigated by riots at the funeral procession of anti-monarchist Jean Lamarque, and which was fueled by tensions between France’s suffering peasants (les misérables) and the monarchy. The plot is concluded by the marriage of Cosette and her lover Marius, and the death of Jean Valjean. In the revitalized musical, stories of despair, love, and tragedy are inextricably intertwined, merging into the intricate tale of “a people who will not be slaves again.”

Our arrangement of Schönberg’s enchanting music, titled 24601, faithfully follows the musical’s plot, with its two movements being equated to each of the show’s two acts. Movement I: Fantine, Jean, Cosette includes the show’s Overture, Work Song, At the End of the Day, I Dreamed a Dream, Master of the House, Do You Hear the People Sing?, and One Day More, depicting the emotions of the principal cast of the show: the despair of the French peasants and prisoners, Fantine’s regrets and her hopes for a better life for Cosette, the sleazy Monsieur and Madame Thénardier, and the unbending will of the French people, longing for change. Movement I describes the eclectic nature of Les Misérables and the tensions which precede the building of the Paris barricades.

Movement II: Marius, Javert, Éponine depicts the tragedy which befalls much of the characters in the show, illustrating the fallout which follows the squandering of the rebels in Paris. This movement contains the songs Drink with Me, Javert’s Suicide, and Epilogue. Here we find near-hopeless rebels savoring their final shreds of optimism for the future, a fallen anti-hero unable to comprehend the pure-heartedness of the man who he thought could be no more than a common criminal, and the hope passed on to Cosette and Marius by the martyrs of the story, reprising the enduring theme of Do You Hear the People Sing? To conclude the arrangement, Movement II portrays the endurance of the spirit of the oppressed, and the hope that lives on in the face of nearly insurmountable hardship.

~ John O. Weber