Continuing the selections from Touché: A Blind Fencer’s Story, this week’s cue is the music from the opening credits. The haunting black-and-white visual of two fencers dueling in slow-motion inspired this lyrical piece for solo piano.

Piano always feels like a natural match for black and white imagery; the color of the keyboard is an obvious correlate, and since piano is used to make “sketches” of orchestral pieces there may be a functional analogy as well. But ultimately I think it’s the instrument’s focused, consistent sound that makes the association click in my mind.

Those ruminations safely delivered, hope you enjoy the piece!

(Click on the play button to stream, or the cue title to download.)

	Touché (Main Titles)

This week’s cue is another selection from the feature documentary Touché: A Blind Fencer’s Story — specifically, a theme for one of the fencers’ serpentine housepets. While I didn’t go overboard trying to match the music to the “character”, I’d like to think that the bluesy guitar melody has a kind of twisting, snakelike quality to it.

(Click on the play button to stream, or the cue title to download.)

	Pet Snakes

This week’s cue is a second excerpt from the score for Touché: A Blind Fencer’s Story. This reprises the theme presented last week, but in an extended form that features different instrumentation. To wit, the moodier piano from the prior version is replaced with nylon-string acoustic guitar, performed here by Tom Strahle. In these musical clothes, the melody feels more optimistic and down-to-earth. (An appropriate mood for Catherine’s upbeat humor, as she heads out to take a work placement test.)

(Click on the play button to stream, or the cue title to download.)

	Taking the Test

George Adams’ documentary Touché: A Blind Fencer’s Story tells the extraordinary story of Catherine Bolton, a woman who after losing most of her vision in adulthood, became a champion blindfolded fencer.

Music for a documentary has to walk a line between romanticism and respect for its subject matter; after all, the “characters” are real people who don’t need to be defined or emotionally authenticated by music. Nonetheless I felt that it was appropriate to compose a leitmotif for Catherine, which recurs throughout the film. Instead of varying the theme musically, I changed its instrumentation to reflect the mood of the moment. This solo piano version takes on a reflective but optimistic tone.

(Click on the play button to stream, or the cue title to download.)

	Catherine’s Theme