taken from the album Mozart 252

This album was designed to celebrate the 250th anniversary of the birth of Mozart in 2006, but it seemed more appropriate to miss the boat, by two years - hence the 252.

to find out more about this and the other tracks on the album click on the 'Buy' button which will take you through the album page. 

Buy from MN Records

Wheelbarrow Walk

This version of Knowing The Ropes is taken from the album 'Acoustic Accordions' - on which nine of Michael Nyman’s Greatest Hits have been arranged and are performed by The Motion Trio.

This release heralds an extraordinary collaboration between Poland’s foremost, nay celebrated, accordion trio, The Motion Trio and Britain’s finest and most prolific classical composer, Michael Nyman.

The collaboration, which operates under the name Michael Nyman and Motion Trio, was originally dreamt up for the 7th Kinoteka Polish Film Festival and performed at the Barbican in April 2009. Together, they have produced Acoustic Accordions, an interpretation of nine of Nyman’s greatest hits (plus a bonus track Silence, written and performed by The Motion Trio) featuring Nyman on piano and Nigel Barr on Trombone and Euphonium.

“Nyman’s music is so wonderful it even sounds good on the accordion.”


Knowing The Ropes (Motion Trio)

Yellow Beach, performed by the Fidelio Trio, is taken from the album Michael Nyman Piano Trios 1992-2010 - an album which includes the World premiere recordings of Poczatek and The Photography of Chance

Yellow Beach piano trio is a transfigured version of 'Come Unto These Yellow Sands'.

"insistent motivic reiterations leavened with lyricism and compassion, inspired by war, industrial archaeology and birdlife and given fine performances” BBC Music Magazine

Yellow Beach

THE PIANO - The Composers Cut Series - Volume III

Music composed and performed by Michael Nyman

Michael Nyman's score for Jane Campion's 1993 film The Piano is one of the most successful film soundtracks of all time. The film itself won the prestigious Palme d'Or at the Cannes film festival in 1993 and went on to win several Oscars at the 1994 Academy Awards. Holly Hunter's role as Ada the film's central role was that of an elective mute who chose to communicate via her playing. If having the music feature so prominently in a film was unusual, for the music to additionally convey the dialogue of the main character is unique. The soundtrack of the film went on to become a multi million seller. Perhaps surprisingly for music with such strong ties to its original source many of the pieces from The Piano were subsequently used in a variety of other settings in film, television and advertising making it some of the most performed/frequently heard orchestral music of the last twenty years.

The concert suite for The Piano as performed by The Michael Nyman Band also became a staple of the band's concert repertoire and has been performed all over the world with the composer taking the roles of pianist and conductor. It is this expanded form of the soundtrack that Nyman chose to record as his own definitive edition in Abbey Road studios in April 2005. The piano pieces again form a dialogue, though here the dialogue is purely musical between pianist and orchestra rather having the piano pieces act as speech substitute as they did in the film. The resulting album is a wonderful example of film music transformed to a distinctive stand alone concert work.

"The purpose of the Composer's Cut series is to present music from my soundtracks in a state of continuous evolution. As I transferred particular cues from film to concert hall both musical structures changed and performance styles developed, enabling the music, perhaps, to realise its true potential. So these recordings represent the Michael Nyman Band's state-of-performance as of spring 2005." – MN August 2005


The Heart Asks Pleasure First

taken from THE LIBERTINE - Original Soundtrack

Music composed by Michael Nyman
Performed by the Michael Nyman Orchestra

Working alongside director Laurence Dunmore, Nyman has composed the music for his latest film – The Libertine. The film is a version of the celebrated Stephen Jeffreys play and stars Johnny Depp, John Malkovich and Samantha Morton. It tells the story of the 17th century Earl of Rochester (Depp), his friendship with King of England Charles II (Malkovich) and his affair with actress Elizabeth Barry (Morton).

The Earl of Rochester was a legendary rake of the era and the film has been described as "outrageously sexy". He managed to reconcile being a sensitive poet and a pornographer, was simultaneously a republican and friend of King Charles II and was passionately in love with both his wife and mistress. The film captures the sense of new possibilities at the dawn of the age of enlightenment.

Nyman has been fortunate to work with directors who understand that music can add greatly to the overall impact of a film, directors who have allowed the music to have a solid presence in their films rather than simply act as background filler. Director Laurence Dunmore has wanted to work with Michael since he first heard his music in 'A Zed and Two Noughts'. For Nyman, there's a direct link back to his first major soundtrack The Draughtsman's Contract as both films are 17th Century based, visually stunning, comedies of manners. Once again the composer and his long-standing band deliver a stunning score, rich in detail with driving, baroque influenced tunes counter-balanced by a series of haunting, elegiac melodies of the sort that has made Nyman's work familiar to millions..


Rochester's Farewell

Recorded in April 2005 at Abbey Road Studios, this album is the definitive compilation of the music from the Nyman/Greenaway collaboration.

Miranda is taken from 'Nyman/Greenaway Revisited'...a collection of the most popular music from the five soundtracks provided by the composer for Peter Greenaway's feature films from 1982 – 1991. Music from The Draughtsman's Contract, A Zed and Two Noughts, Drowning By Numbers, The Cook The Thief His Wife And Her Lover, & Prospero's Books is included.

Greenaway & Nyman had a very different relationship from that of most directors/composers, with Greenaway giving Nyman immense scope for the music. Nyman responded in kind with some of the best film music of the last quarter century. The working methods even varied from film to film. While the score of Zed and Two Noughts was composed without the composer even having seen a single frame of the film, the climactic scene of The Cook The Thief His Wife and Her Lover was quite deliberately choreographed to the pre-existing piece Memorial. The music for these films became widely known & hugely influential on a succeeding generation of composers and directors.

One of Nyman's most recently completed film scores (for The Libertine) returns the composer to a film with a 17th century setting, with director Laurence Dunmore claiming it was the memory of hearing the music to A Zed and Two Noughts many years ago that led him to commissioning Nyman for this film, while Michael Winterbottom (a director who has also worked extensively with Nyman), used music from The Draughtsman's Contract for his newest film A Cock and Bull Story. This collection of music has also become immensely well known to a wide public audience. Among the most frequently performed contemporary music, whether on classical radio stations, or through use in film, TV programming or advertising use, these pieces are as familiar to a mainstream audience as many contemporary pop and rock songs.


Miranda (Nyman Band Version)

track from  the Motion Trio 'Acoustic Accordions' album (and on the soundcloud here alongside the Nyman Band Version of the same track for comparison -- let us know which you prefer)

9 of Michael Nyman’s Greatest Hits arranged and performed by The Motion Trio

“Nyman’s music is so wonderful it even sounds good on the accordion.”

Miranda (Motion Trio version)

And Do They Do - Zoo Caprices

And Do They Do: Song III

And Do They Do: Song II

And Do They Do: Song IV

Nyman/ Noises, Sounds and Sweet Airs

'Sometime Like Apes' from 'Noises, Sounds & Sweet Airs'

Nyman: Prospero's Books CD2

'Miranda' from 'Prospero's Books'

'The Masque' from 'Prospero's Books'

PREVIOUSLY UNRELEASED
Recently rediscovered from the archive of Robert Worby, this demo is from the late 1970s and features some previously unreleased Nyman compositions as well as early versions of 'In Re Don Giovanni' and other music that would later be heard in 'Prospero's Books'.
The Campiello Band later became the Michael Nyman Band, who are celebrating their 40th anniversary in 2016.  
Hear the complete Demo tape on Youtube: http://bit.ly/2fqA0Ns

Undated Demo (late 70s)

PREVIOUSLY UNRELEASED 'In Re Don Giovanni' from 1970s Demo

The Piano: Music From The Motion Picture

The Promise

Film Music 1980 - 2001

The Other Side

The Composer's Cut Series, Vol. III: The Piano

Mozart 252

In Re Don Giovanni

The Composer's Cut Series, Vol. I: The Draughtsman's Contract

Chasing Sheep Is Best Left to Shepherds

An Eye for Optical Theory

Here to There

The Heart Asks Pleasure First / The Promise (Edit)

The Departure

The Morrow

The Heart Asks Pleasure First / The Promise

Michael Nyman and 'The Tempest'

At Last I Left Them

Big My Secret

Caliban's Pit

Fish Beach

‘Tis a Custom in the Afternoon

Miranda

Prospero's Magic

The Masque

At This Hour Lie at My Mercy

Michael Nyman's Official Soundcloud channel

Michael Nyman

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