Unable to bear its certain destruction, Ada strikes a bargain with an illiterate tatooed neighbour. She may earn her piano back if she allows him to do certain things while she plays; one black key for every lesson. The arrangement draws all three deeper and deeper into a complex emotional, sexual bond remarkable for it`s naive passion and frightening disregard for limits.
In composing the score for The Piano the priority was to write Ada`s music - a repertoire that she carried with her wherever she went - music she had a created, not learned.
Consequently, with the help of the script, and especially Holly Hunter`s intensity as both actress and pianist - I began to build a folio of pieces that I had imagined she had in her head, in her fingers, in her body. Initially I was unsure
how to pitch the style. But once I had the perception that since Ada was from Scotland, it was logical to use Scottish folk and popular songs as the basis of the music. The tone an language of the score then fell into place.
It`s as though I had to write the music of a woman composer who happened to live in Scotland, then New Zealand in the mid-eighteen fifties. Someone who was obviously not a professional composer or pianist, so there had to be a modesty to it.
Since Ada doesn`t speak her piano music substitutes for her voice, is her voice. The sound of the piano becomes her character, her mood, her expressions, her unspoken dialogue, her body language. It has to convery the messages she is putting across about her fellings toward Baines during the piano lessons, and these differ from lesson to lesson as the relationship, the state of sexual bargaining and passion, develop. Ada`s music is described by one of the characters in the film as "like a mood that passes trough you...a sound that creeps into you".
The piano music came first, and helped to define the orchestral score.
Michael Nyman
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