Embarrassingly, my age-old tendency to dabble means that Nyman, like many other musicians and writers, is someone with whom I'm only familiar with very few pieces. In this case,
The Piano, which it's my understanding isn't really representative of his work. As I recall, the music for that soundtrack was composed with the specific intent to be believably played (if not composed by) the untrained titular character. That means largely simple chord progressions of her era.
I remember reading about that film shortly before it came out and I was entranced by every aspect. I wasn't yet a cineaste and was beginning a musical journey that abandoned radio and the emerging tastes of my college friends. This was maybe two years after discovering Dylan, which led me through a variety of American "roots" paths, many of which had similar limitations as Nyman imposed not just in the technical front but in trying to capture more fundamental structures and loose time signatures as well as rooted in folk traditions (primarily American and Scottish). Something about
The Piano's melodicism is attached to that side of my taste, despite it being a completely different genre.
Beyond that, before I got into music with vocals (not to mention guitars and drums) I was drawn to movie soundtracks. John Williams may not be terribly highbrow (despite a fairly deep jazz background) but that was part of my foundation. His music and that of a few others (Jerry Goldsmith comes to mind) formed the most basic foundation of my taste, though I'd abandoned listening to that several years before
The Piano. That soundtrack was maybe the first I'd bought in eight years. Rather than lush and orchestral, it was spare -- often solo or with the barest of accompaniment -- and that reflected the significant change in my aesthetic interest. Still, it was a bridge
back. I immediately connected with
"The Heart Asks for Pleasure First," the main piece and that which provides the foundation for many others on the album. It's structure isn't far removed from a pop song (to my ears) and despite being a solo instrument is propulsive in its yearning qualities. Years later,
"The Sacrifice" grew on me because, while the same song, in sections the tempo falters and loses its certainty. Played against each other, the latter is particularly heartbreaking in its woundedness.
Besides someone else's reference to Nyman on the previous page, your mention of Tiersen brought me back to that soundtrack is that somewhere in my mind I think that
Amelie has long been the flipside of
The Piano's coin. Both are piano-centric, but more so both rely on simple structures, fairly minimal arrangements, and multiple arrangements of key songs that break time signatures, thus evoking different states of mind. That's not uncommon, I know, in classical music, but in modern music motifs are rare (Pink Floyd's
The Wall immediately comes to mind). My depth of knowledge in classical music is shockingly limited, though I'm often drawn to smaller pieces like Chopin's
"Nocturnes Op. 9 No. 2". Bringing it all back to roots music, I also cannot tire of Bela fleck's take on Tchaikovsky's
"Souvenir d'un lieu cher, op. 42 melody (in e flat major)," which feels to me like a spot where all these roads converge. That's probably why I'm out of words and, rather than scroll up and revisit, I'll hit "reply" because I'm pretty sure this ramble is scattershot. Happy listening.
