MovieChat Forums > Gabrielle (2005) Discussion > What was the song?

What was the song?

posted 18 years ago by phelpsg1
5 replies | jump to latest

At the second "Thursday", a woman plays piano and sings a song. Does anybody recognize what this music was? We waited through the credits, but weren't told what it was, alas!

Also... what was the significance of this song for the film? Is the point that the people at the salon were pretentiously putting on the appearance of enjoying something avant-garde (for 1912, anyhow!)? I found the music almost painful to listen to (tuneless, flatted singing)... was the singer being deliberately presented as incompetent, or do I just have a tin ear?

[–] chisibo 17 years ago

I think you're right she was avant garde and painful. It was an emperor's new clothes scenario

[–] sheilacornuk 17 years ago

Yes, it seemed to me to underline the hypocrisy of the milieu, with all the house guests pretending to admire the dreadful performance. I think when the well-upholstered elderly regular said it was a nice change to have some drama, she was referring to the spectacle of the host and hostess quarrelling - unlike the false emotion of the performance.

[–] 17 years ago

[deleted]

[–] Krustallos 17 years ago

I thought the song was pretty good actually, and in period, despite what some people have written elsewhere about "21st Century music". Schoenberg, Webern, and Alban Berg had all started writing work of this dissonant nature at the time the film is set and I thought perhaps the character was supposed to be the composer Lili Boulanger (sister of Nadia).

However the sight of seeing someone accompanying herself on the piano like that didn't seem quite right - all a bit Kate Bush for 1912. Surely in that time and place there were singers who sang and accompanists who accompanied?

Anyway, I assume the song was written by Fabio Vacchi who did the rest of the score, which for my money was the single best thing about the film. Bulgarian opera star Raina Kabaivanska was the singer.

I used to want to change the world. Now I just want to leave the room with a little dignity.

[–] jg1972 17 years ago

In the special features of the DVD, the song is referred to as "the Russian song." There was even a deleted scene in which the camera moves around the pianist and then takes in the crowd, almost from her perspective. I'm afraid that I don't know the name of the song, however.