Brief Introduction to Main Theme Songs part 2

        Hello readers! In my last informative article, I‘m going to introduce another one of the most renowned theme songs, that is, the One Day More theme song.

        This theme song has only one prime occurrence in the musical; however, interestingly, it's the style as well as composition of the song that makes it so important as other recurring theme songs, and worth writing an essay for it alone.

        At the end of Act I, voice of discontent from the people spreads through the whole Paris (Look Down), and the students are preparing for the revolution like a raging fire (Do You Hear The People Sing?); the city is definitely on the verge of breakdown. In the song, every character declares their stands, and all the lines are woven together into a perfect piece of music. What the most intriguing is that the melodies in this song are all selected from previous songs, such as Jean Valjean sings Who Am I? for his appearance, Marius, Cosette and Éponine sings the rhythms from I Dreamed A Dream, Javert sings the recurring theme from Fantine’s arrest in a major key, and the chorus sings Do You Hear The People Sing? 

        

        This kind of composition can be categorized into a genre called Quodlibet （混成曲）, which combines several different and independent melodies in counterpoint. This song fuses the melodies so perfectly that every rhythm can match with each other, and I think that’s what makes this song so fascinating.

        Then, turn up the volume and enjoy this majestic masterpiece! Hope you like it!

(Song lyrics: One Day More)

(The video is found on the Internet)