○ Appendix 2: Music

Gunslinger Girl has a beautiful Western classical soundtrack.  Composed by Sahashi Toshihiko, it is a fit for both the Italian setting and the depth the series possesses.  It was always a regret of mine that the music could not be more fluently incorporated into my write-up, for it adds much to both heighten the emotion and edify the viewer.  While there are many pieces which I appreciate (Silenzio, Tristezza), there are a few that deserve special mention for how they are employed.

Tema ("Theme")

The Temas are a set of songs numbered simply I through V.  Together they tell a musical story all their own, reflecting the series as a whole and Henrietta's development in particular.

Tema II is the purest expression, a piece played on a single violin that captures the loneliness and melancholy of Henrietta's search.  It is delicate, wandering, wondering.  This is the song that comes out of her when she plays what is in her heart.  Tema III reflects the same feelings, although filtered through a piano.  Slightly muted, it complements moments of memory when the ache has receded from the forefront but is still felt, unforgettable.  Both of these find union in Ansia ("Anxiety"), a more mature piece which despite its name and tenor ends in a small twist of hope and is one of my personal favorites as a result.

Tema IV is a change from what has come before.  A melody of battle, but one which is ominous rather than angry or triumphant; like the other Temas the violence gives way to pensiveness, underscoring the true struggle.  Throughout a new element is heard: voices, both male and female, singing back and forth to each other.  Henrietta's own melody is almost completely gone in this mess, only able to briefly assert itself at 0:31 and at the quiet, exhausted end of 1:03 before the thunderous conclusion.

This ushers in Tema V, haunting and terrible.  It is reserved for one moment in the series: Henrietta's dream of Elsa.  Foreboding yet past resistance, Elsa has come here to die of her own will.  Part lament, part reflection, the chorus of Elsa's Chiesa (below) merges with the tender violin at 0:22.  It is the same genuineness that flows through both of them.  But then the pressure builds, the voices exchanging and contending, until the final violent crescendo is followed by nothing but silence.

Added together these produce Tema I, the song of Henrietta and indeed of all of Gunslinger Girl.  It begins slowly, always that core of violin from Tema II.  This pattern of searching never leaves it.  Starting at 1:00 it is enhanced by trumpets and voices, familiar from Tema IV, adding both grandeur and worry to her single lonely strain.  It is a great beseeching, an urgency that cannot be denied.

Then at 2:11 the lone violin reemerges as a counterbalance; this is a grand search, but so too a story of persona intimacy in Henrietta.  At 2:45 the violin begins to climb, struggling to stay above the rumbling until it is completely overawed, unable to hold out against all this.  It's too much.  She too will end in violence like Tema V... and then the violin bursts out to give one last cry at 3:24 that silences all else in its sincerity, the ending uncertain but saved.

Curiously, there is a Tema VI as well, and it is profoundly different from the rest.  The feeling is uncertain, tentative rather than seeking.  It is never played with Henrietta but with Claes, and only then in Promessa after she has lost Raballo.  I do not know the reasoning, but it is as though it belongs to a place that Henrietta never reached, the song almost completely changed as a result.

Buon Ricordo ("Good Memories") and Malinconia ("Melancholy")

Both of these songs have a special place in my heart simply for the scenes they bring to mind.

Buon Ricordo is the lake, that place where Claes and Raballo were able to simply exist, happy to be together as father and daughter.  It has that touch of simple elegance, of nothing extravagant and nothing more needed to be added.  They understand.  That it comes back as she wanders alone, lost, and rescues her, is of the utmost poignancy.

It is heard at the end of Pasta as well, when something so heart achingly human and genuine as the love that Marco has for Angelica still retains its place, keeping him alive until the day he can appreciate it once again.

Malinconia is also made sublime by its simplicity, the contentment of Henrietta's treasured memory with Jose.  The ethereal harp recalls moments that are at once happy, mysterious, peaceful, and yet... a little sad as well.  Like Buon Ricordo it bears witness to good things, but with a wistfulness that is influenced by the knowledge that they have passed over and will never come again.

While I would not wish to detract from the rest of the presentation, I give supreme credit to these tracks for making these moments as beautiful as they are.

Etereo ("Ethereal") and Chiesa ("Church")

In contrast to the above selections, Etereo and Chiesa are utilized to contrast their scenes rather than complement them, highlighting messages that might have been overlooked.

Etereo's role is to emphasize evil.  Like many pieces it is used sparingly, and hence incisively.  Its first debut is Henrietta's training in Fratello.  Under no circumstances should we misunderstand what is happening here: an innocent child is being molded into a weapon.  There is no glory, only wailing voices.  It is horrid, unconscionable, and altogether tragic.

But its second appearance, atop that tower in Siena when Elsa is betrayed, closes the loop.  Only the introduction was played before, but now the piano past 0:53 is heard when the inevitable result of what came before is experienced.  The notes fill with pain, becoming incoherent as they fall apart, no longer able to cohere into a proper melody.  Here something has been broken, and with the striking of the last chord there is an indisputable finality: it will never be mended.

Chiesa, too, is associated with Elsa, but it draws our mind upward instead.  Like Etereo it comes in two parts.  The first is when only its strings are present, a quiet introduction to her when she is alone in her room at night.  Up until then Elsa had been aggressive, rude, unlikable; just the sort of person one would wish misery on.  And then this song plays.  Now, when there is nobody else around to convince, her true melody comes flowing out and it is one of the most mournful pieces to be associated with any girl.  This child deserves compassion as well.

Its second is that park in the morning when Elsa's body is found.  This is one of the most profound moments of the series, and an exhibition of its exquisite mixture of pain and hope.  At a time when everything should be screaming senseless tragedy, it plays Chiesa.  The voices are here now, and they are assuredly sad; to be otherwise would be heartless.  But it is more.  Accompanied by an organ, echoing as though in a cathedral, it is a reminder: loss is real, but so too is the light that now radiates from the ground around her.

Silence

If Gunslinger Girl possesses a virtuosity in its application of music, then it is the master of silence.  There are many types of silence, and it is perhaps appropriate that it is the gaps which make some of the most meaningful contributions to the atmosphere.

There is a profound heaviness in quiet.  In its isolation, abandoned by even the music, there is nothing to distract.  Drawn inward, all one is left with are thoughts, accompanied by the quiet footsteps in the colonnade, the rustling of a bag, the crackling of a fire.  They are gentle sounds, yet become loud in the absence of competition.

Its pervasive use throughout the series is a complement to its core ethos of contemplative reflection.  It strips away the flurry of so much of the world, the emotionality itself modulated without the music to reinforce it.  It is not so much that it becomes without feeling, but that it brings that feeling into the focus.  No longer the background, that tension of melancholy becomes the subject itself.

Yet in some ways, it prepares us.  Yes, silence is terrifying when one first encounters it.  There were many things lurking there that we did not want to admit to, and were hoping that with enough sound and fury could drown it out.  Characters are forced to face their deepest terrors without the comforts of diversion.  We do not naturally want to be submerged in silence for this reason: it cannot lie.

But after becoming accustomed to it, forced to allow the fear to pass over and through, it leaves in its wake a different sort of quiet.  A benign silence, one that admits truth.  And listening carefully enough one can perhaps at last hear reverence.