Last year, I watched the movie and fell in love with the soundtrack. Fairly easily, I tracked down the piano version that everyone uses.
The song itself isn't too difficult, it is mainly composed of block chords, trills and leaps. What differs between playing it brilliantly, and just merely playing the notes, is the pianist's control over the melody; as in the beginning, the melody is share by both hands, while playing other chords and notes. But anyone with training in classical (especially Bach and Beethoven) should be able to master that without trouble (I mean, c'mon, this is nothing compaired to those
One of my favourite aspects of this piece, technical/physical-wise, is just the brutal force/energy requirement behind it. This is what's so great about modern/popular music at times - the music is fairly easy, so you get to pound at the piano all you want, and it'll be alright to do so. With classical music, you still get to do that - to do the little intricate details, to feel the subtle/giant differences, etc. But most of the time you'll have to fully learn the piece first, and even then, rarely, do you get to pound the keyboard (and usually, the ones where you do get to pound, have high technical difficulty). So yes, for RfaD, I get to hit the piano - which is why I wouldn't dare to play it on an electric keyboard, too much force behind it.
Overall, it starts out slowish and simple, no chords in the beginning - this is where the technical 'difficult' melody sharing part comes in. The arrangement in the beginning, is simple just haunting. Then, as the piece progresses, it gains a lot of momentum. There remains a hint of the intro motif, but it slowly gets overshadowed by the block chords. And by momentum, this includes physical momentum too. As I've said before, this is a very physical piece, requiring the entire arm, and if you really get into it, the entire body. And as it goes on, the tension just builds and builds up - not just emotional, but also muscle tension, etc, etc. By the end, it can literally leave you shaking and out of breath. Then the arranger just had to be cruel - he suddenly stops this build up, and ends on a very quiet, simple phrase. This obviously sounds brilliant, but to the pianist, it's almost like sprinting at full speed, then suddenly having to walk a tight rope or something, without a transitional distance to slow down and prepare. Absolute cruelty XD.
What's even worse, is that the song is almost entirely made up of octaves. I have small hands. They can reach up to an octave, but have a VERY big problem reaching anything beyond that (which is one of the requirements for a few places in this song). Plus, keeping them stretched at an octave, pounding away, for the entire piece, all 2+ minutes of it, is very painful. Of course, keeping your hand at one chord position for any song is painful, but the octave block chords just make it worse.
Here is a version of the song, played by my favourite pianist in the world (or at least on youtube) right now. This guy is just brilliant, will rec about him later.
Requiem for a Dream Piano Theme - Played by David Debono
*interesting note: regarding to what I said about how this song will leave the pianist shaking. Look at his right hand at around 2:00min, where the block chords end and the simple melody comes back for the conclusion - note the shaking in that hand, that's an example of what I was rambling on about above.
Here's another interesting version.
It's a tutorial for the song (though, whoever is willing to learn the song using this thing, is either a genius - for being able to learn it via this video - or an idiot - for even thinking about trying to do so)
It's made by a program, so obviously there's not much to listen to in terms of the musical experience.
But if you just watch it... It's like a very trippy version of guitar hero/rockband/DDR/all those type of games. Now, if you had this on one of those games, no one will be able to beat it XD.
Piano (Difficult version) Tutorial
Here is the original orchestral version from the soundtrack:
*Another note: starting at around 0:44min, where the violin starts playing that Bb repetition, it's slightly off tune. If this was done on purpose, it makes the song just that much more awesomer (because, manipulation of instruments to manipulate song, etc, etc). But, if it's not done on purpose, then it's just orchestra/violinist fail -____-, which is just bad.
And the 6 minute more epic orchestral version with vocal.
*Further note: the movie involves a lot of mature content... so all you minors + easily disturbed people, don't watch it.
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Birthday: Sylvestre François de Lacroix.
Deathday: Benito Mussolini
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