# Great piano music from films



## Rania

I need help. I'm part of a community of classical musicians who meet every week to perform music around a theme. The theme for this Thursday is film music, and I still don't have anything. I play the piano. I've been looking hard for a few days to find something that's not too cheesy AND has a score available, but without success. I would really appreciate recommendations! I've never been a film person and this is really outside my comfort zone. (Something preferably written for piano, but I'm open to other scores).


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## AnotherSpin

Phillip Glass' Hours, if we speak about modern music for films.


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## tortkis

I don't know if this is "cheesy" to you, but how about Michael Nyman? He composed many film scores. "All my music starts out as piano music." (Nyman, 2005)

Sheet Music on musicroom.com
http://www.musicroom.com/artists/1011/michael-nyman/

For example: Michael Nyman: Film Music For Solo Piano

I like his albums "The Piano Sings" & "The Piano Sings 2", featuring "personal interpretations of film music he wrote."


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## carlmichaels

Perhaps you'd have more luck over at The Movie Corner forum..


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## Delicious Manager

Here are some famous film music piano pieces:

Richard Addinsell - Warsaw Concerto (from _Dangerous Moonlight_, 1941)




Hubert Bath - Cornish Rhapsody (_Love Story_, 1945)




Jack Beaver - Portrait of Isla (_The Case of the Frightened Lady_, 1940)




Richard Rodney Bennett - Theme and Waltz (_Murder on the Orient Express_, 1974)




Bernard Herrmann - Concerto Macabre (_Hangover Square_, 1945)




Leonard Pennario - Midnight on the Cliffs (_Julie_, 1956)




Nino Rota - The Legend of the Glass Mountain (_The Glass Mountain_, 1948)




Miklós Rózsa - Spellbound Concerto (_Spellbound_, 1945)




Dmitri Shostakovich - The Assault on Beautiful Gorky (_The Unforgettable Year 1919_, Op 89, 1951)




Charles Williams - The Dream of Olwen (_While I Live_, 1947)


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## sdtom

Hangover Square is definitely not 'cheesy' as Bernard Herrmann has been accused of many things but never that.


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## Guest

Lots of great piano music in the film _La Pianiste_ (The Piano Teacher) starring Isabelle Huppert.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Piano_Teacher_(film)


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## silentio

Of the greatest uses of piano music in movies, I would recommend this one:






It is an excerpt from Schubert's Andantino from D.959, well-used by Bresson in an iconic scene in _Au hasard Balthazar_.


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## EdwardBast

The theme from The Conversation is interesting. I might be prejudiced because it is such a great film. The whole soundtrack is solo piano, except for a bit of sax. Here one can hear the theme:

http://www.last.fm/music/David+Shire/_/Theme+from+The+Conversation

Supposedly a transcription of this is available. I wasn't going to "join" to find out for sure:

http://www.sheetmusictrade.com/sheets/689337/David_Shire-The_Conversation_Theme.html


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## Aramis

You might like that technically easy but enjoyable (both for the pianist and, I suppose, listeners) waltz from a movie _Nights and Days_:


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## Ilarion

Although not strictly piano...The 1992 film "Un Coeur en Hiver" aka "A Heart in Winter" starring Emmannuelle Beart with Ravel's piano trio...Just delightfully peachy...


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## MrTortoise

And something a little out there, but adds great effect to the film, a movement from György Ligeti's Musica Ricercata used in Stanley Kubrick's 'Eyes Wide Shut'.






Bonus: score included in the video!


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## Steatopygous

Delicious Manager said:


> Here are some famous film music piano pieces:
> 
> Richard Addinsell - Warsaw Concerto (from _Dangerous Moonlight_, 1941)
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Hubert Bath - Cornish Rhapsody (_Love Story_, 1945)
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Jack Beaver - Portrait of Isla (_The Case of the Frightened Lady_, 1940)
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Richard Rodney Bennett - Theme and Waltz (_Murder on the Orient Express_, 1974)
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Bernard Herrmann - Concerto Macabre (_Hangover Square_, 1945)
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Leonard Pennario - Midnight on the Cliffs (_Julie_, 1956)
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Nino Rota - The Legend of the Glass Mountain (_The Glass Mountain_, 1948)
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Miklós Rózsa - Spellbound Concerto (_Spellbound_, 1945)
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Dmitri Shostakovich - The Assault on Beautiful Gorky (_The Unforgettable Year 1919_, Op 89, 1951)
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Charles Williams - The Dream of Olwen (_While I Live_, 1947)


Interesting that every work on this list but one was from the 1940s and 1950s, and the later one is still more than 40 years old. Not sure what that implies. Lesser composers? Changing fashions in instruments? John Williams is no Miklos Rozsa, in any event.
I've seen a very old film that starts with about 15 minutes of Paderewski playing Chopin - inconceivable today. Was that Moonlight Sonata? I remember nothing of the film except that.


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## breakup

"Clare de Lune" by Debussy was used in one of the "Twilight" movies.


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## breakup

One of the Rachmaninoff concertos was used throughout a movie about an affair set at a train station, I don't remember the name of the movie, but I think it was along the lines of "A Brief Affair". 

The movie was "Brief Encounter" by Noel Coward, and the music was "Piano Concerto No. 2" by Rachmaninoff.


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## Vaneyes

*Oscar Levant* first comes to mind.

http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0505157/?ref_=nmbio_bio_nm


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## GreenMamba

Both _Man on Wire_ and _My Dinner with Andre_ use Satie's Gymnopedie no. 1.


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