THE PIANO

MICHAEL NYMAN

Rating:

Original Review: I must have picked this score from off the shelves about a dozen times during the last year, and put it down again every time because some little corner of my brain kept telling me that it wouldn't be worth buying. The score for The Piano has attained a sort of cult status here in the UK and, since its release, has been almost a permanent fixture in the classical charts. It was more curiosity than anything else that made me want to get it, and when I saw a dirt cheap cassette copy in a second hand store, I jumped at the chance of buying it. And now I'm really glad I didn't spend the £15. This is not to say that The Piano is a bad score - on the contrary, it has some lovely moments. It's just not what I expected. It opens with a sad, yearning violin track called 'To The Edge of the Earth' which is really nice - sort of reminiscent of parts of Bram Stoker's Dracula, but it stops very abruptly and moves into 'Big My Secret', a lush piano solo (played by Michael Nyman himself, as are all the piano cues) which could have been composed by a classical master like Chopin or Rachmaninov. 'A Wild and Distant Shore' is a fast, vibrant violin track: moving quickly on the superficial level, but with long, sensuous notes underneath the action, and 'The Heart Asks Pleasure First' and 'The Promise' are probably the most well-known tracks on the album, the former a piano solo with a beautiful, repetitive melody; the latter contains the same melody, but this time with a string harmony to add an extra dimension to the cue. And so the album continues in this vain throughout, mainly with unadorned cues either with strings or the piano, or occasionally mixtures of both. I like 'A Bed of Ferns' and 'Lost and Found', both of which features a nice clarinet section, and 'The Sacrifice' is a clever piece in that the main theme, rather than get quicker, actually reduces in speed as the cue wears on. In fact, all throughout the album, it's all very pleasant listening. But the problem is that there's no emotion, no feeling, no depth. Just pleasant. There are a few really awful cues as well, however: 'Here To There' is a horrible track played on what I can only assume is either some antipodean version of the bagpipes, or a dreadfully out of tune saxophone; 'The Fling', with out being rude to Mr. Nyman, sounds like it was composed by a Sunday school teacher and was played on the piano that used to be in the cupboard at the back of the teacher's office; I actually checked the tape during 'Little Impulse' to make sure that it wasn't rewinding itself and playing the same passage over and over and over; and 'Dreams of a Journey' sounds so off key and garbed that you think the tape must be unravelling inside the stereo. One thing I must mention, however, are the wonderfully evocative names Michael Nyman gives his cues: 'The Mood That Passes Through You', 'A Wild and Distant Shore', 'The Heart Asks Pleasure First'. A lot better than 'Main Title' or 'The Fight', which you sometimes get. For aficionados of Nyman and his style, I can see that this would be considered by some to be a masterpiece. But it's just not me.

Track Listing: Running Time: 56 minutes 47 seconds

Virgin Records 8-39549-4-0 (1993)

Music composed and conducted by Michael Nyman. Performed by The Munich Philharmonic Orchestra. Featured musical soloists John Harle, David Roach, Andrew Findon and Michael Nyman. Recorded and mixed by Michael J. Dutton and Malcolm Luker. Album produced by Michael Nyman.


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These web pages were designed and maintained by Jonathan Broxton copyright 1997. All opinions and views expressed on these pages are my own and are in no way intended to reflect those of my employer, the Trent Institute for Health Services Research, or those of the University of Sheffield.