Saturday song # 6
Cosy up this weekend with a smattering of Bergman-related musical entertainment! Every Saturday [update: a Saturday every now and then], we offer up a new song that relates to Bergman in some interesting manner. Over time, we plan on building up a pretty-little playlist suitable for any occasion, aptly entitled The Original Ingmar Bergman Spotify Playlist. (For more on Bergman and music, click here.)
Saturday song #6 is:
None of Bergman’s films contain as much music as Fanny and Alexander. And out of all the music that does appear, there are two particular pieces which stand out from the rest: Schumann's Piano Quintet in E-flat major (the funereal march of the second movement comprises the main theme of the film), and Siciliana from Bach'ss Sonata No. 2 in E-flat major for flute and harpsichord,which Bishop Vergerus incessantly plays.
There is also something worth mentioning about the two Britten pieces which Bergman selects, as they are so blaringly anachronistic. All other music in the film either predates or is contemporary with the plot. In other words, classical.
Britten’s cello suites, however, were written in the 1960s and 70s, and despite their Bach references, they sound as contemporary as can be.
We shall never quite know precisely why Bergman included the apparently unsuitable Britten pieces in Fanny and Alexander, but one cannot ignore the fact that the third suite’s recitative is named “Fantastico” and appears in the film at literally the most fantastic moment – when Isak Jacobi arrives to free the children from the bishop’s home (however did that happen?); as well as accompanying Oscar’s ghost on his visit to his mother.