The Piano is a tale of a woman's will...
The voice you hear is not my speaking voice---but my mind's voice. I have not spoken since I was six years old. No one knows why---not even me. My father says it is a dark talent, and the day I take it into my head to stop breathing will be my last. Today he married me to a man I have not yet met. Soon my daughter and I shall join him in his own country. My husband writes that my muteness does not bother him--and hark this! He says, "God loves dumb creatures, so why not I?" 'Twere good he had God's patience, for silence affects us all in the end. The strange thing is, I don't think myself silent. That is because of my piano. I shall miss it on the journey.
Ada
Holly Hunter, who plays Ada, is actually an accomplished pianist and does more than justice to the strains which form the foundation of the score by Michael Nyman. Just the way Holly approaches the piano speaks of her familiarity as a musician... She is sometimes shy, sometimes attacking, sometimes languorous, approaching it like she would a lover... when she plays she is insistent, voracious and consumed with it. Nyman wished to create a repertoire for Ada 'that I imagined she had in her head, that her fingers carried around with her.' Ada was from Scotland, and Nyman looked to folk and popular songs of the time for inspiration. He built the rest of the score around those central airs written for her piano....
The reoccurring melody from the score that is painfully gorgeous is found on the soundtrack as 'The Promise.'
This is what longing sounds like, I think.