Michael Nyman
Encyclopedia
Michael Laurence Nyman, CBE
(born in Stratford, London 23 March 1944) is an English composer of minimalist music
, pianist, librettist
and musicologist, known for the many film scores
he wrote during his lengthy collaboration with the filmmaker
Peter Greenaway
, and his multi-platinum soundtrack album
to Jane Campion
's The Piano
. His operas include The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat
, Letters, Riddles and Writs
, Noises, Sounds & Sweet Airs
, Facing Goya
, Man and Boy: Dada
, Love Counts
, and Sparkie: Cage and Beyond, and he has written six concerti, four string quartet
s, and many other chamber
works, many for his Michael Nyman Band
, with and without whom he tours as a performing pianist. Nyman has stated his preference for writing opera to other sorts of music.
into a Jewish family, and was educated at the Sir George Monoux Grammar School, Walthamstow
. He studied at King's College, London under Alan Bush
., and was accepted at the Royal Academy of Music
in September, 1961, and studied with Bush and Thurston Dart
, focusing on piano and seventeenth-century baroque music
. He won the Howard Carr Memorial Prize for composition in July 1964.
In 1969, he provided the libretto
for Harrison Birtwistle
's opera, Down by the Greenwood Side and directed the short film Love Love Love (based on, and identical length to, The Beatles
' "All You Need Is Love
") before settling into music criticism, where he is generally acknowledged to have been the first to apply the term "minimalism
" to music (in a 1968 article in The Spectator
magazine about the English composer Cornelius Cardew
). He wrote introductions for George Frideric Handel
's Concerti Grossi, Op. 6
and conducted the most important interview with George Brecht
in 1976.
Nyman drew frequently on early music
sources in his scores for Greenaway's films: Henry Purcell
in The Draughtsman's Contract
and The Cook, the Thief, His Wife & Her Lover
(which included Memorial
and Miserere Paraphrase), Heinrich Ignaz Franz von Biber in A Zed and Two Noughts, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
in Drowning by Numbers
, and John Dowland
in Prospero's Books
, largely at the request of the director.
Nyman says he discovered his aesthetic playing the aria
, "Madamina, il catalogo è questo
" from Mozart's Don Giovanni
on his piano in the style of Jerry Lee Lewis
, which "dictated the dynamic, articulation and texture of everything I've subsequently done."
He has scored numerous films, the majority of them European art films, including several of those directed by Peter Greenaway
. His few forays into Hollywood have been Gattaca
, Ravenous
(with musician Damon Albarn
), and The End of the Affair
. He wrote settings to various texts by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
for "Letters, Riddles and Writs
", part of Not Mozart. He has also produced a soundtrack for the silent film Man with the Movie Camera. Nyman's popularity increased after he wrote the score to Jane Campion
's award-winning 1993 film The Piano
. The album became a classical music best-seller. He was nominated for both a British Academy Award and a Golden Globe.
Among Nyman's other works are the opera Noises, Sounds & Sweet Airs
(1987), for soprano
, alto, tenor
and instrumental ensemble (based on Nyman's score for the ballet La Princesse de Milan); Ariel Songs (1990) for soprano and band; MGV (Musique à Grande Vitesse)
(1993) for band and orchestra; concertos for saxophone, piano (based on The Piano score), violin, harpsichord
, trombone
, and saxophone & cello recorded by John Harle
and Julian Lloyd Webber
; the opera The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat
(1986), based on a case-study by Oliver Sacks
; and four string quartet
s. In 2000, he produced a new opera on the subject of cloning
on a libretto
by Victoria Hardie titled Facing Goya
, an expansion of their one-act opera Vital Statistics. The lead, a widowed art banker, is written for contralto
and the role was first created by Hilary Summers. His newest operas are Man and Boy: Dada
(2003) and Love Counts
(2005), both on libretti by Michael Hastings
.
He has also composed the music for the children's television series Titch
which is based on the books written and illustrated by Pat Hutchins
.
Many of Nyman's works are written for his own ensemble, the Michael Nyman Band
, a group formed for a 1976 production of Carlo Goldoni
's Il Campiello. Originally made up of old instruments such as rebec
s and shawm
s alongside more modern instruments like the saxophone in order to produce as loud a sound as possible without amplification, it later switched to a fully amplified line-up of string quartet, three saxophones, trumpet, horn
, bass trombone, bass guitar and piano. This line up has been variously altered and augmented for some works.
Nyman also published an influential book in 1974 on experimental music called Experimental Music: Cage and Beyond (Catalan, Spanish and French translations), which explored the influence of John Cage
on classical composers.
In the 1970s, Nyman was a member of the Portsmouth Sinfonia
– the self-described World's Worst Orchestra – playing on their recordings and in their concerts. He was the featured pianist on the orchestra's recording of Bridge Over Troubled Water on the Martin Lewis-produced 20 Classic Rock Classics album on which the Sinfonia gave their unique interpretations of the pop and rock repertoire of the 1950s–1970s. Nyman created a similar group called Foster's Social Orchestra, which specialised in the work of Stephen Foster
. One of their pieces appeared in the film Ravenous
and an additional work, not used in the film, appeared on the soundtrack album.
He has also recorded pop music with the Flying Lizards; a version of his Bird List from the soundtrack to Peter Greenaway's The Falls
(1980) appears on their album Fourth Wall as "Hands 2 Take."
On 7 July 2007 Nyman performed at Live Earth
in Japan
. On 2008 Nyman realised, in collaboration with the cultural association Volumina, Sublime, an artist's book that unified his music with his passion for photography.
In a collaboration with friends Max Pugh
and Marc Silver, Nyman is now beginning to exhibit his films and photography. Nyman’s video works are filmed with a hand-held camera, often before and after concerts and as part of his international travels, featuring everyday moments. Some works are left relatively unedited whilst others undergo split screens and visual repetition. Soundtracks to some of the video works use location sounds, whilst others recycle existing scores from his archive or a combination of both.
In October 2009, Nyman released The Glare
, a collaborative collection of songs with David McAlmont, which cast his work in a new light. The album – recorded with the Michael Nyman Band – finds McAlmont putting lyrics based on contemporary news stories to 11 pieces of Nyman music drawn from different phases of his career.
"David did the research and chose most of the musical pieces," Nyman explains. "I suggested a few pieces,too but I really didn't do very much, although I think it's a true collaboration. You can identify who was responsible for what, but both aspects create a perfect synergy in which neither element can exist without the other."
Although the album was recorded in just two days, there was a huge amount of preparation and rewriting before they entered the studio. "They're third generation songs and when you listen to them, you ask 'Is it Nyman?' 'Is it soul?' 'Is it rock'n'roll?' It's all and none of them," the composer says. "I think we've created a new musical language. I'm no good at writing pop cliché – when I try, it invariably comes out sounding quite different."
The project has a long gestation for the pair first met in 2004 at a exhibition opening and talked about working together. Nothing came of it for almost five years until they got together again via Facebook, met up for lunch – and the idea for The Glare was born.
"I was surprised and delighted by what we've came up with," Nyman says. "So much so, that when I now play these pieces solo, it sounds like something's missing and the music needs David's voice and approach. That's a remarkable thing, because I've been playing these pieces for years. Of all the many collaborations I've been involved in, none has ever given me more pleasure and I'm desperate to take it on the road and play these."
" in homage to Aet, who appears in Greenaway's The Falls
, for which he also composed music. Molly
is a composer in her own right; in collaboration with Harry Escott
she has written several film scores including for The Road to Guantanamo
by her father's frequent collaborator, Michael Winterbottom
. Martha is a development researcher for the BBC
.
Nyman was awarded an honorary doctorate (DLitt) from The University of Warwick on 30 January 2007. At the ceremony The University of Warwick Brass Society and Chamber Choir, conducted by Paul McGrath, premiered a specially composed procession and recession fanfare composed by Nyman.
(orchestra)
* originally recorded by Nyman, Ned Sublette
, Susan Krongold, Barbara Benary
, Jon Gibson
, Richard Cohen
, Virgil Blackwell, Peter Zummo
, and Peter Gordon at The Kitchen
, and intended for Peter Greenaway's short film, The Tree.
Order of the British Empire
The Most Excellent Order of the British Empire is an order of chivalry established on 4 June 1917 by George V of the United Kingdom. The Order comprises five classes in civil and military divisions...
(born in Stratford, London 23 March 1944) is an English composer of minimalist music
Minimalist music
Minimal music is a style of music associated with the work of American composers La Monte Young, Terry Riley, Steve Reich, and Philip Glass. It originated in the New York Downtown scene of the 1960s and was initially viewed as a form of experimental music called the New York Hypnotic School....
, pianist, librettist
Libretto
A libretto is the text used in an extended musical work such as an opera, operetta, masque, oratorio, cantata, or musical. The term "libretto" is also sometimes used to refer to the text of major liturgical works, such as mass, requiem, and sacred cantata, or even the story line of a...
and musicologist, known for the many film scores
Soundtrack
A soundtrack can be recorded music accompanying and synchronized to the images of a motion picture, book, television program or video game; a commercially released soundtrack album of music as featured in the soundtrack of a film or TV show; or the physical area of a film that contains the...
he wrote during his lengthy collaboration with the filmmaker
Film director
A film director is a person who directs the actors and film crew in filmmaking. They control a film's artistic and dramatic nathan roach, while guiding the technical crew and actors.-Responsibilities:...
Peter Greenaway
Peter Greenaway
Peter Greenaway, CBE is a British film director. His films are noted for the distinct influence of Renaissance and Baroque painting, and Flemish painting in particular...
, and his multi-platinum soundtrack album
The Piano (soundtrack)
The Piano is the original soundtrack, on the Virgin Records label, of the 1993 Academy Award-winning film The Piano. The original score was composed by Michael Nyman and is his twentieth album release...
to Jane Campion
Jane Campion
Jane Campion is a filmmaker and screenwriter. She is one of the most internationally successful New Zealand directors, although most of her work has been made in or financed by other countries, principally Australia – where she now lives – and the United States...
's The Piano
The Piano
The Piano is a 1993 New Zealand drama film about a mute pianist and her daughter, set during the mid-19th century in a rainy, muddy frontier backwater on the west coast of New Zealand. The film was written and directed by Jane Campion, and stars Holly Hunter, Harvey Keitel, Sam Neill, and Anna Paquin...
. His operas include The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat
The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat (opera)
The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat is a one-act chamber opera by Michael Nyman to an English-language libretto by Christopher Rawlence, adapted from the case study of the same name by Oliver Sacks by Nyman, Rawlence, and Michael Morris...
, Letters, Riddles and Writs
Letters, Riddles and Writs
Letters, Riddles and Writs is a one act opera for television by Michael Nyman. The story is devised by Nyman, with a libretto by Jeremy Newson and Pat Gavin that incorporates Emily Anderson's English translations of correspondence and other texts by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, the subject of the...
, Noises, Sounds & Sweet Airs
Noises, Sounds & Sweet Airs
Noises, Sounds & Sweet Airs is a 1991 opera by Michael Nyman that began as an opera-ballet titled La Princesse de Milan choreographed by Karine Saporta. The libretto is William Shakespeare's The Tempest, as abridged by the composer...
, Facing Goya
Facing Goya
Facing Goya is an opera in four acts by Michael Nyman on a libretto by Victoria Hardie. It is an expansion of their one-act opera called Vital Statistics from 1987, dealing with such subjects as physiognomy and its practitioners, and also incorporates a musical motif from Nyman's art song, "The...
, Man and Boy: Dada
Man and Boy: Dada
Man and Boy: Dada is a 2003 opera by Michael Nyman on a libretto by Michael Hastings. It tells the story of a friendship between aging dada artist Kurt Schwitters and a twelve-year-old boy. These two characters and the boy's mother make up the cast of the opera.It was first performed at the...
, Love Counts
Love Counts
Love Counts is a 2005 opera in two acts by Michael Nyman on a libretto by Michael Hastings.-Performance history:The opera premiered March 12, 2005 at the Badisches Staatstheater in Karlsruhe, Baden-Württemberg, Germany, directed by Robert Tannenbaum...
, and Sparkie: Cage and Beyond, and he has written six concerti, four string quartet
String quartet
A string quartet is a musical ensemble of four string players – usually two violin players, a violist and a cellist – or a piece written to be performed by such a group...
s, and many other chamber
Chamber music
Chamber music is a form of classical music, written for a small group of instruments which traditionally could be accommodated in a palace chamber. Most broadly, it includes any art music that is performed by a small number of performers with one performer to a part...
works, many for his Michael Nyman Band
Michael Nyman Band
The Michael Nyman Band, formerly known as the Campiello Band, is a group formed as a street band for a 1976 production of Carlo Goldoni's 1756 play, Il Campiello directed by Bill Bryden at the Old Vic...
, with and without whom he tours as a performing pianist. Nyman has stated his preference for writing opera to other sorts of music.
Biography
Nyman was born in Stratford, LondonStratford, London
Stratford is a place in the London Borough of Newham, England. It is located east northeast of Charing Cross and is one of the major centres identified in the London Plan. It was historically an agrarian settlement in the ancient parish of West Ham, which transformed into an industrial suburb...
into a Jewish family, and was educated at the Sir George Monoux Grammar School, Walthamstow
Sir George Monoux College
Sir George Monoux College is a sixth form college located in Walthamstow, East London.-Brief history:Sir George Monoux, the founder of the College, was born in or before 1465. In 1506 he was a Warden of the Drapers Company, in 1509 he became the Sheriff of London and later in 1514 he became Lord...
. He studied at King's College, London under Alan Bush
Alan Bush
Alan Dudley Bush was a British composer and pianist. He was a committed socialist, and politics sometimes provided central themes in his music.-Personal life:...
., and was accepted at the Royal Academy of Music
Royal Academy of Music
The Royal Academy of Music in London, England, is a conservatoire, Britain's oldest degree-granting music school and a constituent college of the University of London since 1999. The Academy was founded by Lord Burghersh in 1822 with the help and ideas of the French harpist and composer Nicolas...
in September, 1961, and studied with Bush and Thurston Dart
Thurston Dart
Robert Thurston Dart , was a British musicologist, conductor and keyboard player. From 1964 he was Professor of Music at King's College London....
, focusing on piano and seventeenth-century baroque music
Baroque music
Baroque music describes a style of Western Classical music approximately extending from 1600 to 1760. This era follows the Renaissance and was followed in turn by the Classical era...
. He won the Howard Carr Memorial Prize for composition in July 1964.
In 1969, he provided the libretto
Libretto
A libretto is the text used in an extended musical work such as an opera, operetta, masque, oratorio, cantata, or musical. The term "libretto" is also sometimes used to refer to the text of major liturgical works, such as mass, requiem, and sacred cantata, or even the story line of a...
for Harrison Birtwistle
Harrison Birtwistle
Sir Harrison Paul Birtwistle CH is a British contemporary composer.-Life:Birtwistle was born in Accrington, a mill town in Lancashire some 20 miles north of Manchester. His interest in music was encouraged by his mother, who bought him a clarinet when he was seven, and arranged for him to have...
's opera, Down by the Greenwood Side and directed the short film Love Love Love (based on, and identical length to, The Beatles
The Beatles
The Beatles were an English rock band, active throughout the 1960s and one of the most commercially successful and critically acclaimed acts in the history of popular music. Formed in Liverpool, by 1962 the group consisted of John Lennon , Paul McCartney , George Harrison and Ringo Starr...
' "All You Need Is Love
All You Need Is Love
"All You Need Is Love" is a song written by John Lennon and credited to Lennon–McCartney. It was first performed by The Beatles on Our World, the first live global television link. Watched by 400 million in 26 countries, the programme was broadcast via satellite on 25 June 1967...
") before settling into music criticism, where he is generally acknowledged to have been the first to apply the term "minimalism
Minimalism
Minimalism describes movements in various forms of art and design, especially visual art and music, where the work is set out to expose the essence, essentials or identity of a subject through eliminating all non-essential forms, features or concepts...
" to music (in a 1968 article in The Spectator
The Spectator
The Spectator is a weekly British magazine first published on 6 July 1828. It is currently owned by David and Frederick Barclay, who also owns The Daily Telegraph. Its principal subject areas are politics and culture...
magazine about the English composer Cornelius Cardew
Cornelius Cardew
Cornelius Cardew was an English experimental music composer, and founder of the Scratch Orchestra, an experimental performing ensemble. He later rejected the avant-garde in favour of a politically motivated "people's liberation music".-Biography:Cardew was born in Winchcombe, Gloucestershire...
). He wrote introductions for George Frideric Handel
George Frideric Handel
George Frideric Handel was a German-British Baroque composer, famous for his operas, oratorios, anthems and organ concertos. Handel was born in 1685, in a family indifferent to music...
's Concerti Grossi, Op. 6
Concerto grosso
The concerto grosso is a form of baroque music in which the musical material is passed between a small group of soloists and full orchestra...
and conducted the most important interview with George Brecht
George Brecht
George Brecht , born George Ellis MacDiarmid, was an American conceptual artist and avant-garde composer as well as a professional chemist who worked as a consultant for companies including Pfizer, Johnson & Johnson, and Mobil Oil...
in 1976.
Nyman drew frequently on early music
Early music
Early music is generally understood as comprising all music from the earliest times up to the Renaissance. However, today this term has come to include "any music for which a historically appropriate style of performance must be reconstructed on the basis of surviving scores, treatises,...
sources in his scores for Greenaway's films: Henry Purcell
Henry Purcell
Henry Purcell – 21 November 1695), was an English organist and Baroque composer of secular and sacred music. Although Purcell incorporated Italian and French stylistic elements into his compositions, his legacy was a uniquely English form of Baroque music...
in The Draughtsman's Contract
The Draughtsman's Contract
The Draughtsman's Contract is a 1982 British film written and directed by Peter Greenaway – his first conventional feature film . Originally produced for Channel 4 the film is a form of murder mystery, set in 1694...
and The Cook, the Thief, His Wife & Her Lover
The Cook, the Thief, His Wife & Her Lover
The Cook, the Thief, His Wife & Her Lover is a 1989 romantic crime drama written and directed by Peter Greenaway, starring Richard Bohringer, Michael Gambon, Helen Mirren, and Alan Howard in the titular roles...
(which included Memorial
Memorial (composition)
Memorial is an epic funeral march-like piece, composed by Michael Nyman around 1984-1985. This composition is one of the most praised in the work of Michael Nyman. Its first commercial recording was on the soundtrack of The Cook The Thief His Wife & Her Lover and has been rerecorded on the Michael...
and Miserere Paraphrase), Heinrich Ignaz Franz von Biber in A Zed and Two Noughts, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart , baptismal name Johannes Chrysostomus Wolfgangus Theophilus Mozart , was a prolific and influential composer of the Classical era. He composed over 600 works, many acknowledged as pinnacles of symphonic, concertante, chamber, piano, operatic, and choral music...
in Drowning by Numbers
Drowning by Numbers
Drowning by Numbers is a 1988 British film directed by Peter Greenaway. It was entered into the 1988 Cannes Film Festival.-Plot:The film's plot centers on three women — a grandmother, mother and daughter — each named Cissie Colpitts. As the story progresses each woman successively drowns her husband...
, and John Dowland
John Dowland
John Dowland was an English Renaissance composer, singer, and lutenist. He is best known today for his melancholy songs such as "Come, heavy sleep" , "Come again", "Flow my tears", "I saw my Lady weepe" and "In darkness let me dwell", but his instrumental music has undergone a major revival, and has...
in Prospero's Books
Prospero's Books
Prospero's Books , written and directed by Peter Greenaway, is a cinematic adaptation of The Tempest, by William Shakespeare. John Gielgud is Prospero, the protagonist who provides the off-screen narration and the voices to the other story characters...
, largely at the request of the director.
Nyman says he discovered his aesthetic playing the aria
Aria
An aria in music was originally any expressive melody, usually, but not always, performed by a singer. The term is now used almost exclusively to describe a self-contained piece for one voice usually with orchestral accompaniment...
, "Madamina, il catalogo è questo
Madamina, il catalogo è questo
"" is a bass aria from Mozart's opera Don Giovanni to an Italian libretto by Lorenzo Da Ponte.It is sung in scene 5 of the first act of the opera, by Leporello, to Donna Elvira. It consists of a description and count of his master's lovers and is sung to a light-hearted tune...
" from Mozart's Don Giovanni
Don Giovanni
Don Giovanni is an opera in two acts with music by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart and with an Italian libretto by Lorenzo Da Ponte. It was premiered by the Prague Italian opera at the Teatro di Praga on October 29, 1787...
on his piano in the style of Jerry Lee Lewis
Jerry Lee Lewis
Jerry Lee Lewis is an American rock and roll and country music singer-songwriter and pianist. An early pioneer of rock and roll music, Lewis's career faltered after he married his young cousin, and he afterwards made a career extension to country and western music. He is known by the nickname 'The...
, which "dictated the dynamic, articulation and texture of everything I've subsequently done."
He has scored numerous films, the majority of them European art films, including several of those directed by Peter Greenaway
Peter Greenaway
Peter Greenaway, CBE is a British film director. His films are noted for the distinct influence of Renaissance and Baroque painting, and Flemish painting in particular...
. His few forays into Hollywood have been Gattaca
Gattaca
Gattaca is a 1997 science fiction film written and directed by Andrew Niccol. It stars Ethan Hawke, Uma Thurman and Jude Law with supporting roles played by Loren Dean, Ernest Borgnine, Gore Vidal and Alan Arkin....
, Ravenous
Ravenous
Ravenous is a 1999 horror film directed by Antonia Bird and starring Guy Pearce, Robert Carlyle and Jeffrey Jones. The film revolves around cannibalism in 1840s California and some elements bear similarities to the story of the Donner Party and that of Alferd Packer...
(with musician Damon Albarn
Damon Albarn
Damon Albarn is an English singer-songwriter and record producer who has been involved in many high profile projects, coming to prominence as the frontman and primary songwriter of Britpop band Blur...
), and The End of the Affair
The End of the Affair (1999 film)
Michael Nyman would later use "Diary of Love" to open and close his solo album, The Piano Sings . As with many of Nyman's 1990s scores, he incorporates material from his String Quartet No.3, which was in turn based on a choral piece titled Out of the Ruins.-Track listing:#Diary of Hate 2:38#Henry...
. He wrote settings to various texts by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart , baptismal name Johannes Chrysostomus Wolfgangus Theophilus Mozart , was a prolific and influential composer of the Classical era. He composed over 600 works, many acknowledged as pinnacles of symphonic, concertante, chamber, piano, operatic, and choral music...
for "Letters, Riddles and Writs
Letters, Riddles and Writs
Letters, Riddles and Writs is a one act opera for television by Michael Nyman. The story is devised by Nyman, with a libretto by Jeremy Newson and Pat Gavin that incorporates Emily Anderson's English translations of correspondence and other texts by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, the subject of the...
", part of Not Mozart. He has also produced a soundtrack for the silent film Man with the Movie Camera. Nyman's popularity increased after he wrote the score to Jane Campion
Jane Campion
Jane Campion is a filmmaker and screenwriter. She is one of the most internationally successful New Zealand directors, although most of her work has been made in or financed by other countries, principally Australia – where she now lives – and the United States...
's award-winning 1993 film The Piano
The Piano
The Piano is a 1993 New Zealand drama film about a mute pianist and her daughter, set during the mid-19th century in a rainy, muddy frontier backwater on the west coast of New Zealand. The film was written and directed by Jane Campion, and stars Holly Hunter, Harvey Keitel, Sam Neill, and Anna Paquin...
. The album became a classical music best-seller. He was nominated for both a British Academy Award and a Golden Globe.
Among Nyman's other works are the opera Noises, Sounds & Sweet Airs
Noises, Sounds & Sweet Airs
Noises, Sounds & Sweet Airs is a 1991 opera by Michael Nyman that began as an opera-ballet titled La Princesse de Milan choreographed by Karine Saporta. The libretto is William Shakespeare's The Tempest, as abridged by the composer...
(1987), for soprano
Soprano
A soprano is a voice type with a vocal range from approximately middle C to "high A" in choral music, or to "soprano C" or higher in operatic music. In four-part chorale style harmony, the soprano takes the highest part, which usually encompasses the melody...
, alto, tenor
Tenor
The tenor is a type of male singing voice and is the highest male voice within the modal register. The typical tenor voice lies between C3, the C one octave below middle C, to the A above middle C in choral music, and up to high C in solo work. The low extreme for tenors is roughly B2...
and instrumental ensemble (based on Nyman's score for the ballet La Princesse de Milan); Ariel Songs (1990) for soprano and band; MGV (Musique à Grande Vitesse)
MGV (composition)
MGV, or Musique à Grande Vitesse - High-Speed Music is a 1993 musical composition by English composer Michael Nyman. It was commissioned by the Festival de Lille for the inauguration of the TGV North-European Paris-Lille line and was first performed by the Michael Nyman Band and the Orchestre...
(1993) for band and orchestra; concertos for saxophone, piano (based on The Piano score), violin, harpsichord
Harpsichord
A harpsichord is a musical instrument played by means of a keyboard. It produces sound by plucking a string when a key is pressed.In the narrow sense, "harpsichord" designates only the large wing-shaped instruments in which the strings are perpendicular to the keyboard...
, trombone
Trombone
The trombone is a musical instrument in the brass family. Like all brass instruments, sound is produced when the player’s vibrating lips cause the air column inside the instrument to vibrate...
, and saxophone & cello recorded by John Harle
John Harle
John Harle is an English saxophonist and composer.-Biography:John Harle - SaxophonistJohn Harle is one of the world’s leading saxophonists, and the most significant performer of the saxophone in the concert hall today...
and Julian Lloyd Webber
Julian Lloyd Webber
Julian Lloyd Webber is a British solo cellist who has been described as the "doyen of British cellists".-Early life:Julian Lloyd Webber is the second son of the composer William Lloyd Webber and his wife Jean Johnstone . He is the younger brother of the composer Andrew Lloyd Webber...
; the opera The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat
The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat (opera)
The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat is a one-act chamber opera by Michael Nyman to an English-language libretto by Christopher Rawlence, adapted from the case study of the same name by Oliver Sacks by Nyman, Rawlence, and Michael Morris...
(1986), based on a case-study by Oliver Sacks
Oliver Sacks
Oliver Wolf Sacks, CBE , is a British neurologist and psychologist residing in New York City. He is a professor of neurology and psychiatry at Columbia University, where he also holds the position of Columbia Artist...
; and four string quartet
String quartet
A string quartet is a musical ensemble of four string players – usually two violin players, a violist and a cellist – or a piece written to be performed by such a group...
s. In 2000, he produced a new opera on the subject of cloning
Cloning
Cloning in biology is the process of producing similar populations of genetically identical individuals that occurs in nature when organisms such as bacteria, insects or plants reproduce asexually. Cloning in biotechnology refers to processes used to create copies of DNA fragments , cells , or...
on a libretto
Libretto
A libretto is the text used in an extended musical work such as an opera, operetta, masque, oratorio, cantata, or musical. The term "libretto" is also sometimes used to refer to the text of major liturgical works, such as mass, requiem, and sacred cantata, or even the story line of a...
by Victoria Hardie titled Facing Goya
Facing Goya
Facing Goya is an opera in four acts by Michael Nyman on a libretto by Victoria Hardie. It is an expansion of their one-act opera called Vital Statistics from 1987, dealing with such subjects as physiognomy and its practitioners, and also incorporates a musical motif from Nyman's art song, "The...
, an expansion of their one-act opera Vital Statistics. The lead, a widowed art banker, is written for contralto
Contralto
Contralto is the deepest female classical singing voice, with the lowest tessitura, falling between tenor and mezzo-soprano. It typically ranges between the F below middle C to the second G above middle C , although at the extremes some voices can reach the E below middle C or the second B above...
and the role was first created by Hilary Summers. His newest operas are Man and Boy: Dada
Man and Boy: Dada
Man and Boy: Dada is a 2003 opera by Michael Nyman on a libretto by Michael Hastings. It tells the story of a friendship between aging dada artist Kurt Schwitters and a twelve-year-old boy. These two characters and the boy's mother make up the cast of the opera.It was first performed at the...
(2003) and Love Counts
Love Counts
Love Counts is a 2005 opera in two acts by Michael Nyman on a libretto by Michael Hastings.-Performance history:The opera premiered March 12, 2005 at the Badisches Staatstheater in Karlsruhe, Baden-Württemberg, Germany, directed by Robert Tannenbaum...
(2005), both on libretti by Michael Hastings
Michael Hastings (playwright)
Michael Gerald Hastings was a British playwright, screen-writer, and occasional novelist and poet.He is probably best known for his 1984 play about the poet T.S. Eliot and his wife Vivienne Haigh-Wood, Tom & Viv, which became a motion picture released in 1994.Hastings was born in London...
.
He has also composed the music for the children's television series Titch
Titch (TV series)
Titch was a stop-motion children's television programme that originally aired on Children's ITV from 1997 to 2000. Then from 2001 shown on Tiny Living, before appearing on Milkshake in 2006 as Tiny Living went off-air...
which is based on the books written and illustrated by Pat Hutchins
Pat Hutchins
- Biography :Hutchins was born on 18 June 1942, the sixth of seven children. A native of Yorkshire, she attended a local art school on scholarship for three years before entering the Leeds College of Art to specialize in illustration. Her first book Rosie's Walk was a 1968 ALA Notable Book. She...
.
Many of Nyman's works are written for his own ensemble, the Michael Nyman Band
Michael Nyman Band
The Michael Nyman Band, formerly known as the Campiello Band, is a group formed as a street band for a 1976 production of Carlo Goldoni's 1756 play, Il Campiello directed by Bill Bryden at the Old Vic...
, a group formed for a 1976 production of Carlo Goldoni
Carlo Goldoni
Carlo Osvaldo Goldoni was an Italian playwright and librettist from the Republic of Venice. His works include some of Italy's most famous and best-loved plays. Audiences have admired the plays of Goldoni for their ingenious mix of wit and honesty...
's Il Campiello. Originally made up of old instruments such as rebec
Rebec
The rebecha is a bowed string musical instrument. In its most common form, it has a narrow boat-shaped body and 1-5 strings and is played on the arm or under the chin, like a violin.- Origins :The rebec dates back to the Middle Ages and was particularly popular in the 15th and 16th centuries...
s and shawm
Shawm
The shawm was a medieval and Renaissance musical instrument of the woodwind family made in Europe from the 12th century until the 17th century. It was developed from the oriental zurna and is the predecessor of the modern oboe. The body of the shawm was usually turned from a single piece of wood,...
s alongside more modern instruments like the saxophone in order to produce as loud a sound as possible without amplification, it later switched to a fully amplified line-up of string quartet, three saxophones, trumpet, horn
Horn (instrument)
The horn is a brass instrument consisting of about of tubing wrapped into a coil with a flared bell. A musician who plays the horn is called a horn player ....
, bass trombone, bass guitar and piano. This line up has been variously altered and augmented for some works.
Nyman also published an influential book in 1974 on experimental music called Experimental Music: Cage and Beyond (Catalan, Spanish and French translations), which explored the influence of John Cage
John Cage
John Milton Cage Jr. was an American composer, music theorist, writer, philosopher and artist. A pioneer of indeterminacy in music, electroacoustic music, and non-standard use of musical instruments, Cage was one of the leading figures of the post-war avant-garde...
on classical composers.
In the 1970s, Nyman was a member of the Portsmouth Sinfonia
Portsmouth Sinfonia
The Portsmouth Sinfonia was an orchestra founded by a group of students at the Portsmouth School of Art in Portsmouth, England, in 1970. The Sinfonia had an unusual entrance requirement, in that players had to either be non-musicians, or if a musician, play an instrument that was entirely new to...
– the self-described World's Worst Orchestra – playing on their recordings and in their concerts. He was the featured pianist on the orchestra's recording of Bridge Over Troubled Water on the Martin Lewis-produced 20 Classic Rock Classics album on which the Sinfonia gave their unique interpretations of the pop and rock repertoire of the 1950s–1970s. Nyman created a similar group called Foster's Social Orchestra, which specialised in the work of Stephen Foster
Stephen Foster
Stephen Collins Foster , known as the "father of American music", was the pre-eminent songwriter in the United States of the 19th century...
. One of their pieces appeared in the film Ravenous
Ravenous
Ravenous is a 1999 horror film directed by Antonia Bird and starring Guy Pearce, Robert Carlyle and Jeffrey Jones. The film revolves around cannibalism in 1840s California and some elements bear similarities to the story of the Donner Party and that of Alferd Packer...
and an additional work, not used in the film, appeared on the soundtrack album.
He has also recorded pop music with the Flying Lizards; a version of his Bird List from the soundtrack to Peter Greenaway's The Falls
The Falls
The Falls is a 1980 film directed by Peter Greenaway. It was Greenaway's first feature-length film after many years making shorts. It does not have a traditional dramatic narrative; it takes the form of a mock documentary in 92 short parts.-Plot:...
(1980) appears on their album Fourth Wall as "Hands 2 Take."
On 7 July 2007 Nyman performed at Live Earth
Live Earth
-Background:Founded by Emmy-winning producer Kevin Wall, in partnership with former U.S. Vice President Al Gore, Live Earth was built upon the belief that entertainment has the power to transcend social and cultural barriers to move the world community to action...
in Japan
Live Earth concert, Kyoto
One of the Live Earth concerts in Japan was held at Tō-ji, Kyoto on 7 July 2007.-Running order:*Rip Slyme - "Solo intro", "Nettaiya ", "Rakuen Baby ", "Unmei Kyodotai "...
. On 2008 Nyman realised, in collaboration with the cultural association Volumina, Sublime, an artist's book that unified his music with his passion for photography.
In a collaboration with friends Max Pugh
Max Pugh
Max Pugh is a French-English filmmaker who divides his time between London, England and France. He was born in the North of England and studied at Durham School and the University of Leeds....
and Marc Silver, Nyman is now beginning to exhibit his films and photography. Nyman’s video works are filmed with a hand-held camera, often before and after concerts and as part of his international travels, featuring everyday moments. Some works are left relatively unedited whilst others undergo split screens and visual repetition. Soundtracks to some of the video works use location sounds, whilst others recycle existing scores from his archive or a combination of both.
In October 2009, Nyman released The Glare
The Glare
The Glare is a 2009 album pairing Michael Nyman with David McAlmont. McAlmont placed new melodies and lyrics on pre-existing Nyman pieces, including some unreleased music from Practical Magic, newly recorded for the new album. Each of the songs is based upon a different news story from the year...
, a collaborative collection of songs with David McAlmont, which cast his work in a new light. The album – recorded with the Michael Nyman Band – finds McAlmont putting lyrics based on contemporary news stories to 11 pieces of Nyman music drawn from different phases of his career.
"David did the research and chose most of the musical pieces," Nyman explains. "I suggested a few pieces,too but I really didn't do very much, although I think it's a true collaboration. You can identify who was responsible for what, but both aspects create a perfect synergy in which neither element can exist without the other."
Although the album was recorded in just two days, there was a huge amount of preparation and rewriting before they entered the studio. "They're third generation songs and when you listen to them, you ask 'Is it Nyman?' 'Is it soul?' 'Is it rock'n'roll?' It's all and none of them," the composer says. "I think we've created a new musical language. I'm no good at writing pop cliché – when I try, it invariably comes out sounding quite different."
The project has a long gestation for the pair first met in 2004 at a exhibition opening and talked about working together. Nothing came of it for almost five years until they got together again via Facebook, met up for lunch – and the idea for The Glare was born.
"I was surprised and delighted by what we've came up with," Nyman says. "So much so, that when I now play these pieces solo, it sounds like something's missing and the music needs David's voice and approach. That's a remarkable thing, because I've been playing these pieces for years. Of all the many collaborations I've been involved in, none has ever given me more pleasure and I'm desperate to take it on the road and play these."
Personal life
He was married to Aet Nyman and has two daughters, Molly and Martha. His first string quartet quotes "Unchained MelodyUnchained Melody
"Unchained Melody" is a 1955 song with music by Alex North and lyrics by Hy Zaret. It has become one of the most recorded songs of the 20th century, by some counts having spawned over 500 versions in hundreds of different languages....
" in homage to Aet, who appears in Greenaway's The Falls
The Falls
The Falls is a 1980 film directed by Peter Greenaway. It was Greenaway's first feature-length film after many years making shorts. It does not have a traditional dramatic narrative; it takes the form of a mock documentary in 92 short parts.-Plot:...
, for which he also composed music. Molly
Molly Nyman
Molly Nyman has composed numerous film scores, mostly in collaboration with Harry Escott. She is the elder daughter of composer Michael Nyman, and appeared in Peter Greenaway's The Falls, as did her mother, Aet Nyman....
is a composer in her own right; in collaboration with Harry Escott
Harry Escott
Harry Escott is a composer living in London. He has composed numerous film scores, mostly in collaboration with Molly Nyman.He studied music at The Royal College of Music and Oxford University....
she has written several film scores including for The Road to Guantanamo
The Road to Guantanamo
The Road to Guantanamo, alternatively The Road to Guantánamo, is a British 2006 docudrama directed by Michael Winterbottom and Mat Whitecross about the incarceration of three British detainees at a detainment camp in Guantánamo Bay Naval Base, Cuba...
by her father's frequent collaborator, Michael Winterbottom
Michael Winterbottom
Michael Winterbottom is a prolific English filmmaker who has directed seventeen feature films in the past fifteen years. He began his career working in British television before moving into features...
. Martha is a development researcher for the BBC
BBC
The British Broadcasting Corporation is a British public service broadcaster. Its headquarters is at Broadcasting House in the City of Westminster, London. It is the largest broadcaster in the world, with about 23,000 staff...
.
Career highlights
- 1961–67 – Studies at the Royal Academy of MusicRoyal Academy of MusicThe Royal Academy of Music in London, England, is a conservatoire, Britain's oldest degree-granting music school and a constituent college of the University of London since 1999. The Academy was founded by Lord Burghersh in 1822 with the help and ideas of the French harpist and composer Nicolas...
and King's College LondonKing's College LondonKing's College London is a public research university located in London, United Kingdom and a constituent college of the federal University of London. King's has a claim to being the third oldest university in England, having been founded by King George IV and the Duke of Wellington in 1829, and...
. - 1968–78 – Works as music critic (becoming first person to apply the word "minimalist" to music).
- 1976 – Founds the Campiello Band (now the Michael Nyman BandMichael Nyman BandThe Michael Nyman Band, formerly known as the Campiello Band, is a group formed as a street band for a 1976 production of Carlo Goldoni's 1756 play, Il Campiello directed by Bill Bryden at the Old Vic...
) and embarks on eleven-film collaboration with Peter Greenaway. - 1981 – Releases first Michael Nyman Band album.
- 1993 – Soundtrack for The PianoThe PianoThe Piano is a 1993 New Zealand drama film about a mute pianist and her daughter, set during the mid-19th century in a rainy, muddy frontier backwater on the west coast of New Zealand. The film was written and directed by Jane Campion, and stars Holly Hunter, Harvey Keitel, Sam Neill, and Anna Paquin...
wins an Ivor Novello Award, Golden Globe, BAFTA and American Film InstituteAmerican Film InstituteThe American Film Institute is an independent non-profit organization created by the National Endowment for the Arts, which was established in 1967 when President Lyndon B. Johnson signed the National Foundation on the Arts and the Humanities Act...
award and goes on to sell over three million copies. - 2002–2005 – Composer-in-Residence at Badisches Staatstheater in KarlsruheKarlsruheThe City of Karlsruhe is a city in the southwest of Germany, in the state of Baden-Württemberg, located near the French-German border.Karlsruhe was founded in 1715 as Karlsruhe Palace, when Germany was a series of principalities and city states...
, Germany, who performed three Nyman operas and more tunes for his daughters. - 2007 – Performed on 7 July from KyotoKyotois a city in the central part of the island of Honshū, Japan. It has a population close to 1.5 million. Formerly the imperial capital of Japan, it is now the capital of Kyoto Prefecture, as well as a major part of the Osaka-Kobe-Kyoto metropolitan area.-History:...
, Japan as part of the Live EarthLive Earth-Background:Founded by Emmy-winning producer Kevin Wall, in partnership with former U.S. Vice President Al Gore, Live Earth was built upon the belief that entertainment has the power to transcend social and cultural barriers to move the world community to action...
global environmental awareness musical event.
Honours
Nyman was appointed Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) in the 2008 Birthday Honours.Nyman was awarded an honorary doctorate (DLitt) from The University of Warwick on 30 January 2007. At the ceremony The University of Warwick Brass Society and Chamber Choir, conducted by Paul McGrath, premiered a specially composed procession and recession fanfare composed by Nyman.
Works
- 1963 – Introduction and Allegro Concertato for Wind Quartet (lost)
- 1963 – Divertimento for Flute, Oboe and Clarinet
- 1965 – Canzona for Flute
- 1974 – Bell Set No. 1 (multiple metal percussion)
- 1976 – 1–100 (4–6 pianos)
- 1976 – (First) Waltz in D (variable)
- 1976 – (Second) Waltz in F (variable)
- 1977 – In Re Don Giovanni (ensemble)
- 1978 – The Otherwise Very Beautiful Blue Danube Waltz (multiple pianos)
- 1979 – "The Masterwork" Award Winning Fish-Knife"The Masterwork" Award Winning Fish-Knife'The Masterwork' Award Winning Fish-Knife is a 1979 performance sculpture by Paul Richards and Bruce McLean with music by Michael Nyman. The companion album is the second release by Michael Nyman and the first release including the Michael Nyman Band...
(ensemble) - 1980 – A Neat Slice of Time (choir)
- 1981 – Think Slow, Act Fast (ensemble)
- 1981 – Five Orchestral Pieces for Opus Tree (band*) (based on Anton WebernAnton WebernAnton Webern was an Austrian composer and conductor. He was a member of the Second Viennese School. As a student and significant follower of Arnold Schoenberg, he became one of the best-known exponents of the twelve-tone technique; in addition, his innovations regarding schematic organization of...
's Five Orchestral Pieces, Op. 10) - 1981 – M-Work (band)
- 1981 – 2 Violins
- 1982 – Four Saxes (Real Slow Drag) (saxophone quartet)
- 1983 – A Handsome, Smooth, Sweet, Smart, Clear Stroke: Or Else Play Not At All
(orchestra)
- 1983 – Time's Up (chamber ensemble)
- 1983 – I'll Stake My Cremona to a Jew's Trump (electric violin and viola, both players also simultaneously singing)
- 1983 – Love is Certainly, at Least Alphabetically Speaking (soprano and band)
- 1984 – The Abbess of Andouillets (choir)
- 1985 – Nose-List Song (soprano and orchestra) [this and the above three works are from an unfinished operaTristram Shandy (opera)Tristram Shandy is an unfinished opera project by Michael Nyman based on his favorite novel, The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman, by Laurence Sterne, begun in 1981...
setting of Laurence SterneLaurence SterneLaurence Sterne was an Irish novelist and an Anglican clergyman. He is best known for his novels The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman, and A Sentimental Journey Through France and Italy; but he also published many sermons, wrote memoirs, and was involved in local politics...
's The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, GentlemanThe Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, GentlemanThe Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman is a novel by Laurence Sterne. It was published in nine volumes, the first two appearing in 1759, and seven others following over the next 10 years....
, which Nyman has repeatedly cited as his all-time favourite book] - 1985 – ChildsLucinda ChildsLucinda Childs is an American postmodern dancer/choreographer. Her compositions are known for their minimalistic movements yet complex transitions. Childs is most famous for being able to turn the slightest movements into an intricate choreographic masterpiece...
Play (2 violins; harpsichord) - 1985 – String Quartet No. 1
- 1986 – Taking a Line for a Second WalkTaking a Line for a Second WalkTaking a Line for a Second Walk is the name of piano duo reduction of a dance work for orchestra by Michael Nyman, Basic Black, written in 1986 for the Houston Ballet. It is eponymous with a 1994 album on Work Music on which it constitutes approximately half the material...
(for orchestra (Basic Black) or piano duet) - 1986 – The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a HatThe Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat (opera)The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat is a one-act chamber opera by Michael Nyman to an English-language libretto by Christopher Rawlence, adapted from the case study of the same name by Oliver Sacks by Nyman, Rawlence, and Michael Morris...
(opera; libretto by Christopher Rawlence; adaptedThe Man Who Mistook His Wife for a HatThe Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat and Other Clinical Tales is a 1985 book by neurologist Oliver Sacks describing the case histories of some of his patients. The title of the book comes from the case study of a man with visual agnosia...
from the Oliver SacksOliver SacksOliver Wolf Sacks, CBE , is a British neurologist and psychologist residing in New York City. He is a professor of neurology and psychiatry at Columbia University, where he also holds the position of Columbia Artist...
case studyCase studyA case study is an intensive analysis of an individual unit stressing developmental factors in relation to context. The case study is common in social sciences and life sciences. Case studies may be descriptive or explanatory. The latter type is used to explore causation in order to find...
by Nyman, Rawlence, and Michael MorrisMichael MorrisMichael Morris may refer to:*Michael Morris, 1st Baron Killanin , Irish lawyer and political figure, became the first Lord Killanin in 1900....
) - 1986 – And Do They DoAnd Do They Do/Zoo CapricesAnd Do They Do/Zoo Caprices is the eighth album released by Michael Nyman and the fifth feauring the Michael Nyman Band. And Do They Do is a modern dance work commission by Siobhan Davies and The London Contemporary Dance Theatre, which premiered at Sadler's Wells Theatre on November 25, 1986...
(modern dance, 1986) - 1987 – Vital Statistics (opera; libretto by Victoria Hardie)
- 1988 – String Quartet No. 2
- 1989 – Out of the RuinsOut of the RuinsOut of the Ruins is a choral work by Michael Nyman for an eponymous BBC documentary by Agnieszka Piotrowska in commemorating the first anniversary of the 1988 Spitak earthquake in Armenia 7 December 1988, which aired on the BBC's 40 Minutes. The texts are from Grigor Narekatsi's Book of Lamentations...
(choir) - 1989 – La Traversée de ParisLa Traversée de Paris (album)La Traversée de Paris is an album by the Michael Nyman Band featuring music composed by Michael Nyman for an audio-visual exhibition of the same name which took place at the Grande Arche de la Défense from July to December 1989 to celebrate the bicentennial of the French Revolution.-Track...
(soprano and band) - 1989 – The Fall of Icarus (band)
- 1989 – L'Orgie Parisienne Arthur RimbaudArthur RimbaudJean Nicolas Arthur Rimbaud was a French poet. Born in Charleville, Ardennes, he produced his best known works while still in his late teens—Victor Hugo described him at the time as "an infant Shakespeare"—and he gave up creative writing altogether before the age of 21. As part of the decadent...
setting (soprano or mezzo soprano and orchestra) - 1989 – La SeptLa Sept (album)La Sept is a 1989 promotional album of music for La Sept written by Michael Nyman and performed by the Michael Nyman Band. It is Nyman's fourteenth release. Gabrielle Lester makes her debut with the band on this album...
(band) - 1990 – Shaping the Curve (soprano saxophone, string quartet or piano)
- 1990 – Six CelanPaul CelanPaul Celan was a poet and translator...
Songs (contralto and orchestra) - 1990 – Polish Love Song (soprano and piano)
- 1990 – String Quartet No. 3
- 1990 – The Kiss and Other MovementsThe Kiss and Other MovementsThe Kiss and Other Movements is the sixth album release by Michael Nyman, and the fifth recording with the Michael Nyman Band. The title track is an "operatic duet" between Dagmar Krause and Omar Ebrahim, based on a painting of the same title by Paul Richards, which is depicted on the cover, and...
- 1991 – The Michael Nyman SongbookThe Michael Nyman SongbookThe Michael Nyman Songbook is a collection of art songs by Michael Nyman based on texts by Paul Celan, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, William Shakespeare and Arthur Rimbaud. It was recorded as an album with Ute Lemper in 1991, and again as a concert film in 1992, under the direction of Volker...
A collection of songs based on texts by Paul CelanPaul CelanPaul Celan was a poet and translator...
, Wolfgang Amadeus MozartWolfgang Amadeus MozartWolfgang Amadeus Mozart , baptismal name Johannes Chrysostomus Wolfgangus Theophilus Mozart , was a prolific and influential composer of the Classical era. He composed over 600 works, many acknowledged as pinnacles of symphonic, concertante, chamber, piano, operatic, and choral music...
, William ShakespeareWilliam ShakespeareWilliam Shakespeare was an English poet and playwright, widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and the world's pre-eminent dramatist. He is often called England's national poet and the "Bard of Avon"...
, and Arthur RimbaudArthur RimbaudJean Nicolas Arthur Rimbaud was a French poet. Born in Charleville, Ardennes, he produced his best known works while still in his late teens—Victor Hugo described him at the time as "an infant Shakespeare"—and he gave up creative writing altogether before the age of 21. As part of the decadent...
and recorded with vocalist Ute LemperUte LemperUte Lemper is a German chanteuse and actress renowned for her interpretation of the work of Kurt Weill.- Biography :Born in Münster, Germany, Ute Lemper was raised in a Roman Catholic family. She joined the punk music group known as the Panama Drive Band at the age of 16...
. - 1991 – Where the Bee Dances (soprano saxophone and orchestra)
- 1991 – Fluegelhorn and Piano
- 1992 – Time Will Pronounce (violin, cello, and piano)
- 1992 – For John Cage (brass ensemble)
- 1992 – Self-Laudatory Hymn of Inanna and Her Omnipotence (alto and string orchestra or countertenor and viol consort)
- 1992 – The Convertibility of Lute Strings (solo harpsichord)
- 1992 – Anne de Lucy Songs (soprano and piano)
- 1992 – Le Mari de la Coiffeuse (The Hairdresser's HusbandThe Hairdresser's HusbandThe Hairdresser's Husband , a 1990 French film written by Patrice Leconte and Claude Klotz, and directed by Leconte. Jean Rochefort stars as the title character. Anna Galiena co-stars.It won Patrice Leconte the Prix Louis Delluc...
) - 1992 – The Upside-Down Violin (orchestra/ensemble)
- 1993 – MGV: Musique à grande vitesseMGV (composition)MGV, or Musique à Grande Vitesse - High-Speed Music is a 1993 musical composition by English composer Michael Nyman. It was commissioned by the Festival de Lille for the inauguration of the TGV North-European Paris-Lille line and was first performed by the Michael Nyman Band and the Orchestre...
(band and orchestra) - 1993 – The Piano Concerto (piano and orchestra)
- 1993 – Noises, Sounds & Sweet AirsNoises, Sounds & Sweet AirsNoises, Sounds & Sweet Airs is a 1991 opera by Michael Nyman that began as an opera-ballet titled La Princesse de Milan choreographed by Karine Saporta. The libretto is William Shakespeare's The Tempest, as abridged by the composer...
(1993; opera-ballet setting William ShakespeareWilliam ShakespeareWilliam Shakespeare was an English poet and playwright, widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and the world's pre-eminent dramatist. He is often called England's national poet and the "Bard of Avon"...
's The TempestThe TempestThe Tempest is a play by William Shakespeare, believed to have been written in 1610–11, and thought by many critics to be the last play that Shakespeare wrote alone. It is set on a remote island, where Prospero, the exiled Duke of Milan, plots to restore his daughter Miranda to her rightful place,...
) - 1993 – Yamamoto PerpetuoMichael Nyman for Yohji YamamotoMichael Nyman for Yohji Yamamoto is volume 2 of Yohji Yamamoto's series of albums, The Show. The album features the solo violin work Yamamoto Perpetuo , which Nyman has since adapted into the String Quartet No...
(violin solo) - 1993 – Songs for Tony (saxophone quartet)
- 1994 – To Morrow (soprano or soprano saxophone, organ)
- 1994 – 3 Quartets (ensemble)
- 1994 – Concerto for Trombone (trombone, orchestra, and steel filing cabinets)
- 1995 – String Quartet No. 4
- 1995 – Tango for Tim (In memoriam Tim Suster) (harpsichord)
- 1995 – The Waltz Song (unison voices)
- 1995 – Viola and Piano
- 1995 – Grounded (mezzo-soprano, saxophones, violin, piano)
- 1995 – HRT [High Rise Terminal] (chamber ensemble)
- 1995 – Concerto for Harpsichord and Strings
- 1995 – Double Concerto for Saxophone and Cello (saxophone, cello, and orchestra)
- 1996 – After Extra TimeAfter Extra Time (album)After Extra Time is a 1996 album by Michael Nyman with the Michael Nyman Band containing three tributes to Nyman's fandom of Association football: After Extra Time, the soundtrack to The Final Score, and Memorial. The latter is described as a remix, but is simply the 1992 recording from The...
(ensemble) - 1996 – Enemy ZeroEnemy Zerois a 1997 video game for Sega Saturn, developed by WARP and directed by Kenji Eno. After its Saturn release, it was ported to Microsoft Windows. It was the second game to star the digital actress Laura.-Gameplay:...
(game music) - 1997 – Enemy Zero – Original Soundtrack
- 1997 – Strong on Oaks, Strong on the Causes of OaksStrong on Oaks, Strong on the Causes of OaksStrong on Oaks, Strong on the Causes of Oaks is a 1998 album by the English Sinfonia conducted by Bramwell Tovey. The work, by Michael Nyman, is paired with The Protecting Veil by John Tavener featuring Josephine Knight on the cello...
(orchestra) - 1997 – The Promise (piano)
- 1997 – Gattaca
- 1998 – TitchTitch (TV series)Titch was a stop-motion children's television programme that originally aired on Children's ITV from 1997 to 2000. Then from 2001 shown on Tiny Living, before appearing on Milkshake in 2006 as Tiny Living went off-air...
(worked on the main opening/closing piano theme). - 1998 – Cycle of Disquietude (Coisas, Vozes, Lettras) (soprano, mezzo-soprano, and band)
- 1998 – Orfeu (band)
- 1998 – De Granada A La Luna (band)
- 1999 – The Commissar Vanishes (band)
- 1999 – The End of the Affair
- 2000 – Facing GoyaFacing GoyaFacing Goya is an opera in four acts by Michael Nyman on a libretto by Victoria Hardie. It is an expansion of their one-act opera called Vital Statistics from 1987, dealing with such subjects as physiognomy and its practitioners, and also incorporates a musical motif from Nyman's art song, "The...
(opera; libretto by Victoria Hardie) - 2001 – a dance he little thinks of (orchestra)
- 2003 – Violin Concerto (violin and orchestra)
- 2003 – Man and Boy: DadaMan and Boy: DadaMan and Boy: Dada is a 2003 opera by Michael Nyman on a libretto by Michael Hastings. It tells the story of a friendship between aging dada artist Kurt Schwitters and a twelve-year-old boy. These two characters and the boy's mother make up the cast of the opera.It was first performed at the...
(opera; libretto by Michael HastingsMichael Hastings (playwright)Michael Gerald Hastings was a British playwright, screen-writer, and occasional novelist and poet.He is probably best known for his 1984 play about the poet T.S. Eliot and his wife Vivienne Haigh-Wood, Tom & Viv, which became a motion picture released in 1994.Hastings was born in London...
) - 2005 – Love CountsLove CountsLove Counts is a 2005 opera in two acts by Michael Nyman on a libretto by Michael Hastings.-Performance history:The opera premiered March 12, 2005 at the Badisches Staatstheater in Karlsruhe, Baden-Württemberg, Germany, directed by Robert Tannenbaum...
(opera; libretto by Michael Hastings) - 2006 – gdm for Marimba and Orchestra (concerto)
- 2006 – Acts of Beauty (song cycle)
- 2007 – A Handshake in the DarkA Handshake in the DarkA Handshake in the Dark is an anti-war choral piece by Michael Nyman, based on texts by the Iraqi poet Jamal Jumá, an exiled poet living in Denmark, and constitutes a series of imaginary letters to his younger brother, a conscript captured by the Americans and whose whereabouts were long unknown....
(choral piece with orchestra; text by Jamal JumáJamal JumáJamal Jumá, An Iraqi poet and researcher, born in Baghdad, and since 1984 lived in Denmark. Has Bachelor of Arts in Arabic Literature from University of Basrah and Cand.mag. in Semitic Philology from the University of Copenhagen....
[world premiere 8 March 2007, Barbican, London, performed by the BBC Symphony Chorus and Orchestra, John Storgards conducting]) - 2007 – Interlude in C (expansion of a theme from The Libertine for Accent07 touring ensemble)
- 2007 – Eight Lust Songs song cycleSong cycleA song cycle is a group of songs designed to be performed in a sequence as a single entity. As a rule, all of the songs are by the same composer and often use words from the same poet or lyricist. Unification can be achieved by a narrative or a persona common to the songs, or even, as in Schumann's...
- 2008 – Yamamoto Perpetuo for Solo Flute (arranged by Andy Findon)
- 2009 – Sparkie: Cage and Beyond opera with Carsten Nicolai
- 2009 – The Musicologist Scores (band)
- 2010 – 2Graves
- 2010 – Vertov Sounds
Ned Sublette
Ned Sublette is an American composer, musician, record producer and musicologist. Sublette studied Spanish Classical Guitar with Hector Garcia at the University of New Mexico and with Emilio Pujol in Spain. He studied composition with Kenneth Gaburo at the University of California, San Diego...
, Susan Krongold, Barbara Benary
Barbara Benary
Barbara Benary is an American composer and ethnomusicologist specializing in Indonesian and Indian music.In 1976 she co-founded Gamelan Son of Lion with Philip Corner and Daniel Goode; she also constructed most of the group's instruments...
, Jon Gibson
Jon Gibson (minimalist musician)
Jon Gibson is a flautist, saxophonist, and composer.-Education:Gibson studied at Sacramento State University and with Henry Onderdonk and Wayne Peterson at San Francisco State University, where he earned a BA in 1964...
, Richard Cohen
Richard Cohen
Richard Cohen may refer to:*Richard Cohen , syndicated columnist for the Washington Post*Richard Cohen , a British Olympic fencer and author of Chasing the Sun*Richard A. Cohen, advocate of conversion therapy...
, Virgil Blackwell, Peter Zummo
Peter Zummo
Peter Zummo is an American composer and musician. He plays the trombone, valve trombone, euphonium, synthesizer, other electronic instruments, and also sings. He is associated with the postminimalist and Downtown aesthetics, and he describes his music as "minimalism plus a whole lot more."He...
, and Peter Gordon at The Kitchen
The Kitchen
The Kitchen is a non-profit, multi-disciplinary art and performance space located at at 512 West 19th Street, between Tenth and Eleventh Avenues in the Chelsea neighborhood of Manhattan, New York City...
, and intended for Peter Greenaway's short film, The Tree.
Nyman's music re-used
- Nyman's "The Heart Asks Pleasure First" (from The Piano) is the music on which Italian rock noirRock noirRock noir is a term used to identify a sub-genre of rock characterized by dramatic performances of theatrically rendered lyrical storytelling. It was originated by Italian band Belladonna, whose debut album Metaphysical Attraction is the first full-length Rock noir album ever released...
band BelladonnaBelladonna (band)Belladonna is an Italian Rock noir band.- Metaphysical Attraction :Belladonna was formed on February 14, 2005 in Rome, Italy by Luana Caraffa and Dani Macchi. During the course of the following months Belladonna wrote and recorded many songs, eleven of which would become their first full album:...
's song "Let There Be Light" is based. Released in December 2010, the track features Michael Nyman himself on piano. - Nyman's "The Heart Asks Pleasure First" (from The Piano) was used as backing music for one of the bank advertisements for Lloyds TSBLloyds TSBLloyds TSB Bank Plc is a retail bank in the United Kingdom. It was established in 1995 by the merger of Lloyds Bank, established in Birmingham, England in 1765 and traditionally considered one of the Big Four clearing banks, with the TSB Group which traces its origins to 1810...
broadcast on television. It has also been featured in episodes of 20/20. - Music from Ravenous has been used at least once on WFYI's Across IndianaAcross IndianaAcross Indiana is a weekly 30 minute long documentary-style television program which covers places, people, history and culture across Indiana....
, in a segment titled "On the Trail of John Hunt MorganJohn Hunt MorganJohn Hunt Morgan was a Confederate general and cavalry officer in the American Civil War.Morgan is best known for Morgan's Raid when, in 1863, he and his men rode over 1,000 miles covering a region from Tennessee, up through Kentucky, into Indiana and on to southern Ohio...
", produced by Scott Andrew Hutchins. - Nyman's soundtrack for CarringtonCarrington (film)Carrington is a biographical film written and directed by Christopher Hampton about the life of the English painter Dora Carrington , who was known simply as "Carrington"...
is mostly based on his own String Quartet No. 3. - A Cock and Bull StoryA Cock and Bull StoryA Cock and Bull Story is a 2006 British comedy film directed by Michael Winterbottom...
contains music from The Draughtsman's Contract, as well as Nyman's arrangements of classical music used in Stanley KubrickStanley KubrickStanley Kubrick was an American film director, writer, producer, and photographer who lived in England during most of the last four decades of his career...
's Barry LyndonBarry LyndonBarry Lyndon is a 1975 British-American period romantic war film produced, written, and directed by Stanley Kubrick based on the 1844 novel The Luck of Barry Lyndon by William Makepeace Thackeray which recounts the exploits of an 18th century Irish adventurer...
(it does not use any music from Nyman's Tristram Shandy opera). - Nyman's music for Peter Greenaway's films has been used in the Japanese television program Iron ChefIron Chefis a Japanese television cooking show produced by Fuji Television. The series, which premiered on October 10, 1992, is a stylized cook-off featuring guest chefs challenging one of the show's resident "Iron Chefs" in a timed cooking battle built around a specific theme ingredient. The series ended...
. - Popular "Chasing Sheep is Best Left to ShepherdsChasing Sheep Is Best Left to ShepherdsChasing Sheep is Best Left to Shepherds is a piece of music from the soundtrack for The Draughtsman's Contract, written by Michael Nyman.-Versions:...
" (from The Draughtsman's Contract) constituted the main theme of Spanish TV program Queremos Saber, presented by Mercedes MilàMercedes MiláMaría Mercedes Milá Mencos is a Spanish television presenter and journalist, most notable for her work on Spain's Telecinco's Gran Hermano, the Spanish version of the reality television series Big Brother.- Biography :...
in the nineties. - Nyman features in '9 Songs9 Songs9 Songs is a 2004 British film directed by Michael Winterbottom. The title refers to the nine songs played by eight different rock bands that complement the story of the film...
' (Michael Winterbottom, 2004) playing at the Hackney Empire on his 60th birthday. - Nyman's MGV: Musique à grande vitesseMGV (composition)MGV, or Musique à Grande Vitesse - High-Speed Music is a 1993 musical composition by English composer Michael Nyman. It was commissioned by the Festival de Lille for the inauguration of the TGV North-European Paris-Lille line and was first performed by the Michael Nyman Band and the Orchestre...
was used in November 2006 for a new one-act ballet for the Royal Ballet in London, DGV (danse à grande vitesse) by Christopher Wheeldon. - Nyman's "The Heart Asks Pleasure First" was covered by the Finnish symphonic metal band NightwishNightwishNightwish is a Finnish symphonic metal band from Kitee, Finland. Formed in 1996 by songwriter and keyboardist Tuomas Holopainen, guitarist Emppu Vuorinen, and former vocalist Tarja Turunen, Nightwish's current line-up has five members, although Tarja has been replaced by Anette Olzon and the...
. Nyman had refused to release the song initially; he later authorised its use. - Time Lapse was used in Sky's 2008 'Heroes' advert
- Selections from Nyman's catalogue formed part of the soundtrack for James MarshJames Marsh (director)James Marsh is a film director known for directing the cult film Wisconsin Death Trip starring Marcus Monroe and Sir Ian Holm. He won 2008 Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature for directing Man on Wire....
's 2008 documentary, Man on WireMan on WireMan on Wire is a 2008 British documentary film directed by James Marsh. The film chronicles Philippe Petit's 1974 high-wire walk between the Twin Towers of New York's World Trade Center. It is based on Philippe Petit's book, To Reach the Clouds, recently released in paperback with the new title...
, a film about Philippe PetitPhilippe PetitPhilippe Petit is a French high-wire artist who gained fame for his high-wire walk between the Twin Towers of the World Trade Center in New York City, New York, on 7 August 1974...
, a Frenchman, who in 1974 illegally strung a tightrope between the top of the WTC buildings and danced between them for 45 minutes, thus committing the "artistic crime of the 20th century". - Nyman's piece "Car Crash" from A Zed & Two Noughts was used for once on the final episode of a Greek series called 'To Kafe Tis Xaras'
Recordings
- Man and Boy: Dada – MN Records 102
- The Very Best of Michael Nyman: Film Music 1980-2001The Very Best of Michael Nyman: Film Music 1980-2001The Very Best of Michael Nyman: Film Music 1980-2001 is a compilation album of film music by Michael Nyman, including three previously unreleased tracks and one from the limited release, La Traversée de Paris...
– Virgin EMI CDVED957 - String Quartets 1–3String Quartets 1–3String Quartets 1–3 is a 1991 album by the Balanescu Quartet and the fifteenth release by Michael Nyman. It is the second album of his music on which he did not perform or conduct, though he does provide liner notes. String Quartet No...
– Decca 4730912 - Decay MusicDecay MusicDecay Music is the 1976 debut album by Michael Nyman, released on Brian Eno's Obscure Records music label. The two works on the album, 1-100 and Bell Set No. 1 are both built around the musical concept of decay. Both of these experiment with percussive, long decay musical forms. 1-100 is...
EMI CVE964 2004
External links
- Michael Nyman official site
- Michael Nyman's homepage at Chester Music
- The Power of the Cadence: Michael Nyman in conversation with Robert Davidson
- 'The Case Against Nyman Revisited' Recent article on Michael Nyman's use of pre-existing music
- Nyman à grande vitesse, review article in The Oxonian Review
- Michael Nyman judged The Film of the Month competition in June 2009 on the independent filmmakers networking site Shooting People
- An Evening with Michael Nyman, BAFTA event video