Ok, here is my analysis.
So it turns out the piano piece is on sheet music in Deckard’s apartment. I’ll set up the scene in a long handed, Iove this movie and it has one of my favorite sub scenes of all time in cinema. I call it “the lonely man”.
So Rachael comes to Deckard’s apartment for the first time, by which I mean he almost shoots her. Incidentaly, I’ve seen the old “backseat of the car guy gets you” a million times. I remember one pretty clearly in A Few Good Men as Colonel Blows-His-Brains-Out-Later-In-Discrace pulls this trick on Tom Cruise. I’ve seen that trick in a lot of movies, usually it’s a mobster whacking someone. I actually look into the backseat of my car when getting in ALL THE TIME now because I don’t want some wierdo to kill me with a garrote from behind as I settle in.
But Rachel suprises Deckard with the ol’ backseat trick… in the elevator! That struck me as I watched for the piano playing scene.
So to sum up the next subscene, which is a part of larger scene I will call “Deckard doesn’t talk to women much:Part I” for now, Deckard doesn’t know how to talk to women. He offers Rachel a drink like 3 times, starts drinking himself, and then offends her so much by belittling her and crushing her world and laughing about it, she runs off. Right after she does this Deckard takes his drink (a bourbon or something in a giant tumbler glass) and goes outside on his balcony.
The next shot is one of my favorites in all of film. As Deckard looks down and around off his balcony, drizzling rain, falling water from the overhangs, and glowing hovercars frame an amazing shot of a guy, wrapped up in a blanket, all alone, shielding himself from the world with a drink in hand. One of Vangelsis’ moodiest slow synth blues accompanys this often imitated but never surpassed moody shot.
He then goes to the piano and sits down. He looks at a pastche of old photos and sheet music which is partially obscured by the photos.
The next series of shots is particularly complex. I watched the “Final Cut” version which I guess is Scott’s definitive answer on the various cuts. In this version Deckard is getting drunk, and starts to play piano. He plays a quiet tune that sounds like some early Chopin or something. It’s not super early wether he is reading the music here or not, because :. Spoiler alert:. RACHEL totally does in the next scene I will describe in a bit…
Then he has his unicorn dream while looking kind of spacey. That’s essentially where the scene ends…