Discovery DP1001 - 1991 Duration 31:08

The film opens in Poland with a beautiful sequence with some choral music when we follow the steps of Weronika.  Through a chance encounter she is been given, because of her beautiful unusual high pitched voice a role for a performance of a "nearly unknown composer who happened to live in Holland at the end of the XVIIIth century", so we are told.
We hear this strange and beautiful music first during a rehearsal and I have to admit to have been wondering who was this long rgotten composer I did not know !In fact all the music has been written by Zbigniew Preisner. Kieslowski and Preisner went to great lengths to prop up this joke made at the expense of classical buffs enthralled by this new obsession for superfluous  information. (All this in typical Kieslowski's ironic style). 
Thus on the CD track list, we are told one cue was taken from the 1798 version of the Concerto in E minor (with even an opus number!), then an other one is an excerpt from the 1802 version !

When comes the evening of the premiere, at the height of the climax, while the melody is in full flight, all of the sudden Weronika's voice starts to wobble and breaks. She collapses and dies on the spot of a broken heart.
This scene is very moving but at the same time there is a dark irony to it.
And let's face it : the swan song of a diva dying on stage, heart broken, is certainly one of the worse cliché inherited from the XIXth century opera tradition.. But because of Kieslowski's talent as a story teller,  Preisner's music and Irène Jacob beautiful performance the whole episode works fine. Kieslowski, as a puppet master playing God, enjoys himself tremendously when he creates highly improbable coincidences, then he leads the audience to believe these mysterious events will be explained. But nothing happens: there is no explanation, no purpose. Life still remains a riddle, absurd, cruel, but also could be beautiful even if there is no much point in trying to make sense of it.

In the second part of the film, we see the other Véronique in Paris. First she gives up her singing lessons without explanation. Obviously the audience knows why - because this happens after the sudden death of Weronika. But then Véronique (she is a music teacher) decides to have her pupils playing a Concerto in E minor from an unknown Dutch composer ! Thus the music works as a link between the two Véroniques. One sings the concerto and the other conducts a performance.

Preisner 's music is very different from mainstream Hollywood. No huge symphonic orchestra, no masses of strings but instead he uses a lot woodwinds, especially the Pan flutes and also choirs. He is very good at weaving delicate textures with, for example, harpsichord, or delayed pianos for very atmospheric pieces (the Puppet Master). His style is very much anchored in the mid European and Polish tradition, folk like melodies, modes, also tone clusters accompanying religious choral singing, and in fact his sound world is not so far removed from Gorecki's - with a lot more humour obviously.
His music wonderfully blends in with Kieslowki's beautifully shot pictures in this slightly faded golden light and helps to create this enigmatic and nostalgic atmosphere