MovieChat Forums > My Brilliant Career (1979) Discussion > Classical Piece

Classical Piece

posted 16 years ago by Night-Flight
8 replies | jump to latest

Hi. Does anyone know the name of that classical piece that plays throughout the film? I really like it, but I haven't been able to find the title and it's driving me crazy. A little help, please?

[–] margee 16 years ago

Hi-
It's Schumann- Kinderszenen Op. 15; 1. Von Fremden Landern und Menschen.

(Schumann- Scenes from Childhood, Op. 15. Of Foreign Lands and People)

(I know, I got a little obsessed with it too, and tracked it down on iTunes)

Hope this helps-

[–] Night-Flight 16 years ago

Thank you so much, Margee! Yeah, the obsession got even stronger for me after posting here because the movie aired a few times on satellite since then. But now I know. *grin*

[–] linnigran 16 years ago

My thanks too, Margee. I've just ordered the CD from Amazon. Seems to me I've heard that piece in another film - anyone remember?

[–] Night-Flight 16 years ago

This piece was also used in a French costume drama called "Children of the Century."

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0177746/

[–] hodie 11 years ago

I was looking for that piece since the first time I saw the film in 1980 or so. See the film once, and by the end you know the melody by heart. God bless the Internet and iTunes.

Get me a bromide! And put some gin in it!

[–] netshopper-2 12 years ago

Was this song used in Sophie's Choice?

[–] Night-Flight 12 years ago

I think it was.

[–] practicepiano 8 years ago

It's a piece that many piano students learn at the intermediate stage. It's great for teaching expressive playing, balance, and Romantic style.

And, it's been in quite a few films, although Traumerei and The Happy Farmer are the Schumann pieces used in more films than any others.

http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0006281/

One of the things I like in this film is that the piano on which we first hear it played by Sybylla sounds pretty bad, as it should. One of my movie pet peeves is hearing a perfectly tuned concert grand, mismatched with the visual of a home in which the weather blows through and the prop piano is a battered upright!

When the theme is played over the opening credits, and fragments of it come back in the score, then it is time for it to be lovely and in tune. And, in this case, the contrast between those renditions and how it sounded when Sybylla played it is an aural representation of Sybylla's need to push past the mundane and imagine things as more lovely than they are.