There's a (Counter) Point to this Post

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A music form that I really enjoy is "counterpoint" - two equal and contrasting melodies running at the same time, both with independent lyrics.  The first example of this I remember hearing is Irving Berlin's "You're Just in Love". Here it's sung by Donald O'Connor and Ethel Merman in the film Call Me Madam.


Irving Berlin was really good at this. Another great counterpoint song he wrote is "Play a Simple Melody." Here's it's performed by The Musical Theater Project:


I'm a fan of Meredith Willson's musical stage play and film, The Music Man, not just because I grew up about 40 miles from "River City" (Mason City, Iowa).  The show includes a wonderful counterpoint melody, combining "Lida Rose" by the Buffalo Bills barbershop quartet, and "Will I Ever Tell You" sung by Shirley Jones.




My favorite Astaire/Rogers musical is Swing Time, directed by George Stevens with music by the great Jerome Kern. Two of the beautiful songs it features are "A Fine Romance" and "Just the Way You Look Tonight." At the very end of the film, Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers are each singing the respective songs and the two melodies fit perfectly together.




I love the music of Paul Williams and my favorite Christmas movie is Jim Henson's Emmet Otter's Jug Band Christmas largely because of the music Williams composed for it. (He even sent me an autographed DVD of the film.) The story involves a talent contest where Emmet Otter and his friends sing a song, "Brothers", while Emmet's mother sings "Our World." Neither performance wins the talent contest, but when they put the two songs together in counterpoint they are a hit.


"One Day More" from Les Misérables superimposes most of the key Act I songs.



Similarly, Andrew Lloyd Webber's Phantom of the Opera has a mash-up of themes in "Prima Donna":



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