ABSTRACT
Any reading of The Piano needs to take into account the complex series of multiple author-as-composer positions engendered by the music's function. In The Piano Michael Nyman reconfigures both elements: a Romantic sensibility is refracted through a postmodern lens. The old and new coexist. At scene 17 the piano is heard for the first time in a quasi-diegetic context, accompanied by string orchestra. During the course of the following set of cues, this quasi-diegetic element gradually asserts itself while simultaneously establishing the piano within the general fabric of the soundtrack. Nyman's music thus operates both within and outside The Piano, hence the reason why it has become such a success as 'absolute' music and been adapted to a variety of different instrumental forces and contexts. The piano became a nineteenth-century contrivance and was also a classic Victorian status symbol.
