| The Quintet from WEST SIDE STORY / One Day More from LES MIZ / We Don't Talk about Bruno from "Encanto" -- what are their musical historical roots? | |
| Posted by: GrumpyMorningBoy 12:27 am EST 01/06/22 | |
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| I went to school for this. i should know this. I don't know this. With all the recent talk about WEST SIDE STORY, and with Lin-Manuel Miranda's "We Don't Talk About Bruno" from Disney's newest film "Encanto" flying up the Spotify charts, I started thinking about the big counterpoint songs we've come to expect (and cherish) within a musical. You know the ones I'm talking about. "The Quintet" is probably the perfect example, but "One Day More" is probably how more recent musical theater audiences came to love this type of song. Characters each have the chance to sing unique melodies & lyrics, which then combine and overlap in a thrilling kaleidoscopic counterpoint. It's now become a genre song so popular that we expect it. "Non-Stop" from HAMILTON carries things even further than others, by pulling musical fragments from all across Act 1. Here's my main question: in terms of musical theater history, what did Bernstein & Sondheim's Quintet build on? Are there examples from earlier Broadway musicals that aimed for something similar? I can think of duets that Berlin wrote, like "An Old Fashioned Wedding" / "Play a Simple Melody" from ANNIE GET YOUR GUN (1946), and a number of other early musical duets that combined in counterpoint, but are there examples (from the Golden Age or before) that wove together three or more voices & melodies? More than anything, for those of you who know opera and operetta better than I, I'd love to know what kinds of precursors might have been known to Bernstein. An awful lot of musical theater history that I don't know! Humbling. And if any of you are up for sharing, are there any counterpoint musical theater songs that you really really love and think deserve extra attention? And are you listening to "We Don't Talk about Bruno" non-stop? - GMB |
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| Next: | re: The Quintet from WEST SIDE STORY / One Day More from LES MIZ / We Don't Talk about Bruno from "Encanto" -- what are their musical historical roots? - Seth Christenfeld 12:57 am EST 01/07/22 |
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