PIANISSIMO
I have a problem with this song. And it's not the song really. The song is beautiful. My problem is everything that seems to have been put around it to make sure the world knew just how beautiful it was supposed to be. I'm talking about Pianissimo, the duet by Bocelli and Bartoli. I came across it recently, listened to it, and thought, well... damn. This is good.
Then I watched the video.
Oh, dear.
There are flowers, of course there are flowers. Perfect flowers. There is also the mansion, the perfect camera angles, the perfect lighting, and the perfect scenery. Tuscany is obviously required whenever two people sing about love. And then there is the piano: a beautiful, enormous, expensive acoustic piano that looks as though it probably has its own insurance policy. And then there are the smiles. Oh, those smiles.
I can just imagine Cecilia Bartoli standing in front of a mirror rehearsing hers.
“Okay, Cecilia. This is Pianissimo. Tender. Intimate. Natural.”
Smile.
“No, no. Too much teeth.”
Try again.
“Too happy. This is longing.”
Try again. This time forget the camera is there
“Better. Now look toward Andrea as though he is the only person in Tuscany.”
And then they start singing. And that's where my carefully constructed argument begins to fall apart.
Damn them.
Because the music doesn't need any of this. It doesn't need the mansion, the flowers, the perfect smiles, the Tuscan countryside, or a piano that I know costs more than my first car. It just needs the two of them. But then I read what Bocelli thinks the song is about. Two people in love who feel God's gaze and love in their relationship. Sigh... Of course it is. Because all that perfection wasn't enough, now We needed God to be involved. The cherry on top of the already fucking perfect cake.
Well, I don't hear God in it. I hear two people singing about love, longing, and that strange feeling of being completely affected by another person. That's enough for me. Somewhere in all of this "perfection", I hear a line: Il dolore passerà. Well. That's a cheerful thought. It makes me think of Tim though.
He has been gone for a year now, I can't even blame the song for being attached to those memories. But it found them anyway. So, almost against my will and in the middle of this writing and thoughts of Tim, I've been thinking also that there is something rather ridiculous about being human.
I, for example, always try to get things right. I try to be happy, to find some peace of mind when I needed. I make plans. Occasionally I buy things I don't need. I worry about things that haven't happened yet. I've fallen in love. I've lost people. And yes, I am also getting older, surprise!. And eventually, that's it... Lovely system. I don't get to negotiate the ending. So when a song tells me, Il dolore passerà, I have mixed feelings.
Will it?
I suppose it does. Eventually. In one form or another. But what about everything that came before the pain? That's where this song gets me, because, in the middle of all its sadness, it also makes me think about hope, the good old days, the things that were wonderful while they were happening, although I was too busy living them to appreciate the fact that one day I'd call them the good old days.
And that hurts.
I do not think the song is tragic. It's because it reminds me that some things really were good. And some people really were here. And then they weren't. There. Now I've gone from making fun of the flowers to thinking about mortality. This is why I shouldn't listen to music at night. And that's the annoying part. After all my complaining, I still have to admit that the song is beautiful. Really beautiful and the vocals are incredible.
Damn it.
They did everything in their power to make me hate it, and here I am, at two in the morning, listening to it again with a big knot in my throat. Perhaps I should stick to fortissimo. It's safer. Harder to hear myself thinking.