[Nils Jacob Holt Hanssen]

Hmm, the piano… I have to admit it’s never been among my favourite instruments. At least not when it’s used as a solo instrument. I’m not sure why, but I’m having trouble getting emotionally involved by it. I like it when it adds its color and ambience to an ensemble, be it an orchestral piece or pop music. When my wind orchestra plays larger works, there is often a piano part, and it’s always wonderful when the pianist joins our rehearsals. But things like piano sonatas or concertos rarely do much for me.

The only explanation I have for this is that with the piano, after you’ve hit the key you can’t really shape the tone the way you can with a wind or string instrument, making it, to me, less expressive. Of course, for a piano player, much of the artistry lies in how you hit the key: softly, loudly, gently or with attack etc. But somehow that doesn’t seem to be enough for me.

This is apparently a personal defect on my part, considering all the supposedly great piano music that’s out there. 😉

To get a little more on topic: I definitely enjoy the piano’s contributions in the quiet, low-key Williams scores you mentioned, Thor, as well as things like A PATCH OF BLUE (Goldsmith) and TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD (Bernstein). And of course it can be used in more hard-hitting ways as well, almost like percussion instrument (which is what it is, strictly speaking), like Goldsmith did in PLANET OF THE APES. I probably have many others in my collection that I can’t think of right now.