Michael Nyman - Live (1994)

Chameleon-like and resistant to categorization, Michael Nyman is one of the most eclectic composers to emerge from the late twentieth century's minimalist scene. Nyman's music encompasses many styles, not only the neo-Baroque pastiches in his film music but also popular and world music styles that may be less familiar. This live recording makes Nyman's diverse output comprehensible and amounts to his first greatest-hits package. The program opens with In Re Don Giovanni, a fun pattern piece drawn from the introductory measures of Leporello's Catalogue Aria. Bird List, with its obsessive backbeat and hard saxophone edge, is somewhere between minimalism and rock, an ambiguity Nyman clearly intended. The Queen of the Night, adapted from Nyman's soundtrack for The Draughtsman's Contract, is an extended version of one of the film's mordant pieces. Water Dances, in two movements entitled "Dipping" and "Stroking," is derived from pop harmonies of the 1960s, which Nyman admits as an important influence. The Upside-Down Violin features the Moroccan Orquesta Andaluzi de Tetuoan and provides an example of Nyman's ethnic explorations. The atmospheric concert suite from the soundtrack for The Piano is perhaps Nyman's most widely acclaimed work, and here it brings several ovations from the audience.