Tell Me More About This Style of Music

Cafe Society
1

Two people are singing a duet. Call them Charlotte and Josh.

Charlotte will sing a line in one language (say, English), and Josh will sing a line in another language (say, Italian). The Italian, when translated back into English, isn’t an actual translation of the English line sung by Charlotte, but it’s along similar themes. At various points in the song, they both may be singing one language or the other, or they may switch languages.

I first encountered this form in the song “Time to Say Goodbye,” by Sarah Brightman and (I believe) Andrea Bocelli. It’s been done to much better effect, IMHO, in the song “The Prayer,” by two performers whose names escape me :wink: .

Is this style of music a recent phenomenon? TtSG comes from the late 1990’s - is that the first time this form was used? Surely some opera from back in The Day uses this technique.

Also, does this form have an official name, other than “singing in two languages”?

2

Using my one bump.

3

I’m not sure if there’s a name for it, but ‘The Prayer’ was done by Celine Dion and Andrea Bocelli, IIRC.

The only thing I’ve been able to find it called is a ‘Bi-lingual Duet’, but it may or may not have another name.

4

Go back further than that, to the 14th and 15th centuries and you find polytextual motets. Two or three different pieces of poetry, or of sacred Latin text, are used, each by a different voice. And in many cases, the texts will be in different languages from one another.