Red Death (2020)

Carlotta Ferrari (b. 1975) — Red Death (2020) for organ

“Red Death” (2020), written in the early months of the 2020 Coronavirus pandemic, is inspired by the famous 1842 story “The Masque of Red Death” by Edgar Allan Poe (1809–1849). In order to escape a gruesome and quick-acting plague sweeping the country, Prince Prospero, indifferent to the suffering of his people, holds a masked ball for wealthy nobles in his walled abbey. Each of the first six rooms of the abbey is decorated with a different color: blue, purple, green, orange, white, and violet. The last room is black, illuminated by a light of “deep blood color” through stained glass windows. Given the situation and the spookiness of this room, very few guests are willing to enter. A large clock stands in the room and ominously chimes the hours. As it chimes, everybody stops dancing to listen. Then the ball resumes. At the chiming of midnight, Prospero notices a figure in a dark, blood-stained robe with the mask of a corpse. Prospero confronts the figure, but he falls down dead. The now-terrified guests remove the guest’s mask and robe and find out there is nothing underneath. They all become afflicted by the plague and die of the disease: “And Darkness and Decay and the Red Death had illimitable dominion over all.”

This musical work is organized as a series of highly stylized renaissance dances—one for each room—separated by the chiming of the clock. After the six colored rooms, the final seventh section represents the black room and the dominion of Red Death in a concluding macabre waltz.

1) La stanza blu (passamezzo)
2) La stanza porpora (gagliarda)
3) La stanza verde (saltarello)
4) La stanza arancione (calata)
5) La stanza bianca (bourrée)
6) La stanza viola (passacaglia)
7) La stanza della Morte Rossa (valse brillante)