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?
I don't have access to my Amadeus script. But I do have the memory of a fantastic Act Two speech in which Shaffer's Mozart tells Salieri of his ambition to write an extended finale in which a quartet becomes a quintet becomes a sextet and continues to expand to include the world, which must be the way that God hears the world. That, he maintains--and I am of necessity paraphrasing--is the task of the composer: to allow audience to hear as God does. (This speech--also as my memory serves, is not in the film version insofar as its triumphant conclusion. I recall the endpoint of the film speech being about how long Mozart could sustain a finale.)
Certainly accounts for our delight at hearing the blending of separate melodies.
