Marat / Sade - Original Motion Picture Soundtrack Music - "The Persecution And Assassination Of Jean-Paul Marat As Performed By The Inmates Of The Asylum Of Charenton Under The Direction Of The Marquis De Sade"

Released in 1967, this soundtrack captures Richard Peaslee’s haunting score for the film adaptation of Peter Weiss’s legendary play, Marat/Sade. The production emerged from the Royal Shakespeare Company’s revolutionary stage staging, directed by Peter Brook, which sought to translate the raw, disorienting intensity of Artaud’s Theatre of Cruelty to the screen. The music was specifically composed to underscore the bleak, claustrophobic atmosphere of the Charenton asylum, blending period-appropriate textures with a jarring, avant-garde sensibility that mirrored the inmates' psychological turbulence.

The album serves as a vital document of the mid-sixties experimental theater movement. Peaslee’s compositions were designed to be both functional for the actors' movements and evocative of the protagonist's descent into madness and political fervor. Upon its release via Caedmon, the record was recognized not merely as a typical film score, but as a challenging piece of performance art that forced listeners to confront the grim, allegorical narrative of the French Revolution as depicted through the distorted lens of the asylum inmates.