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« Reply #45 on: 09:56:49, 26-05-2007 » |
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Richard,I found your post very illuminating.
Nyman does remind me of Trollope or Millais, two truly gifted creative artists who just decided they didn't want to struggle for years producing unappreciated masterpieces when they could churn out kitsch which would sell like hot cakes.
I used to accept the theory that Vetriano was in this category,until I started to look at his paintings closely and found that he really cannot draw propperly.His anatomy is faulty;look at those foreshortened arms, for instance.
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Reiner Torheit
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« Reply #46 on: 11:19:37, 26-05-2007 » |
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as concert music they are pretty pitiful (I don't get this fad for hearing film music without the film). Nor me. Do you think people are "bringing their mentally-stored enjoyment of the film" with them when they go to such events? MN brought the MN Ensemble over here about 3-4 months ago, for a live concert (repertoire not announced prior to the gig, nor were there any printed programmes available). It was definitely the dullest evening I've spent in a concert-hall this year. I got a special laugh from the audience applauding the openings of numbers ("Vegas-style") they believed they "knew" (because they sounded like numbers from Draughtsman's Contract etc), but in fact were different. I wonder if they ever realised they'd heard a different piece? I use the word "different" in a purely relative sense here  The gig did sell-out (1800 seats at very fancy prices, three times higher than usual for an already ritzy venue) however, which I find vaguely depressing. [KRONOS were in the same venue 3 weeks later and didn't sell-out, even at the regular prices.] I do wish MN would get a proper pianist to play the solo numbers - his own playing doesn't help already weak material along much. I had the sinking feeling that if he'd instead played Elgar's Chanson de Matin on the musical saw the crowd would still have cheered. I would defend MAN WHO MISTOOK HIS HAT though, as there are parts which I find quite successful - it's a pity this line of work wasn't ever developed. I remember seeing another of his operas, intended as a follow-up... something about the Borgias, or medieval Italy? I forget the name of it. It was premiered at the Royal Court, with Opera Factory... sometime around 1984-5... it was so desperately bad that even the composer had disowned it the last time I looked at his website, where it didn't feature at all. |
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"I was, for several months, mutely in love with a coloratura soprano, who seemed to me to have wafted straight from Paradise to the stage of the Odessa Opera-House"
- Leon Trotsky, "My Life"
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FisherMartinJ
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« Reply #47 on: 21:51:46, 26-05-2007 » |
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Nyman does remind me of Trollope or Millais, two truly gifted creative artists who just decided they didn't want to struggle for years producing unappreciated masterpieces when they could churn out kitsch which would sell like hot cakes.
I heard a multiple-hearsay but still well-attested story that Nyman very deliberately set out to become popular and make loadsamoney sometime roundabout Draughtsman's Contract, rather on the model of pop performers. I confess I do like DC, both film and music, though this and so much of his subsequent music seems to be a deliberate looting of cultural history with a big 'Aren't I clever' grin. Not much heart, and diminishing returns on the processes themselves. As so often when not driven from within and with something genuinely new to say, either in process or message. And don't ask me to define the latter term...  |
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« Last Edit: 12:36:57, 28-05-2007 by FisherMartinJ »
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'the poem made of rhubarb in the middle and the surround of bubonic marzipan'
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lovedaydewfall
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« Reply #48 on: 22:04:13, 27-05-2007 » |
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As I said earlier, there are pieces which work well and others which deserve scorn. It would perhaps be more instructive to differentiate the two. Or perhaps you know ALL his work and think it's ALL crap. If so, say so. Having been a fellow-student doesn't stregthen your post.<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<///////////////As I think I have said before on these boards it is n't necessary to hear all a composer's output to arrive at a judgment of his worth. I certainly don't know all Nyman's work, nor do I wish to. Life is far too short to spend time studying the "works" of people who are basically a waste of space!\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> |
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Bryn
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« Reply #49 on: 22:44:42, 27-05-2007 » |
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I remember taking a fairly instant dislike to a man I later discovered to be Michael Nyman at a concert in the Purcell Room, back in the late '60s. I think it was one of the "The Contemporary Pianist" series put on by Music Now. It may even have been the one where John Tilbury performed a realization by Gavin Bryars of Stockhausen's "Plus-Minus". Anyway, there was this balding lout, or so he seemed to me, sprawled out across several seats towards the back of the Room. He seemed to be making notes, so I took it he planned to review the concert.
Later, as a fellow Scratcher, (Scratch Orchestra member), I got to know and rather like this chap. He passed on several magazine/LP publications of 20th century music to me. When he had temporary cash flow problems I even bought his VCS3 from him, (I have a recording somewhere of him playing it in a performance of "Sister Ray" (as a Scratch Orchestra type 'Popular Classic').
Anyway, I think his music for those Greenaway films, where he did not in any way seek to hide his debt to Purcell, etc. was very effective indeed. I have found the concert works, in general, far less so. The operas I find more interesting. I'm currently trying "Man and Boy Dada" again, and will return to "Facing Goya" in a few days, maybe. It's not good judging a composer just by his most "bread and butter" work. Would you assess Shostakovich purely on the basis of his music for propaganda films, for instance.
I certainly find Nyman's operatic output of recent years of far greater musical interest than that of Glass.
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Bryn
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« Reply #50 on: 19:41:43, 29-05-2007 » |
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Googling for something else entirely, (a John Tilbury article which got into Private Eye's "Pseuds' Corner"), I found this. It offers a little further info on the "Sister Ray" performance. |
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« Last Edit: 20:08:24, 29-05-2007 by Bryn »
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harmonyharmony
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« Reply #51 on: 22:00:21, 29-05-2007 » |
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I would defend MAN WHO MISTOOK HIS HAT though, as there are parts which I find quite successful - it's a pity this line of work wasn't ever developed. I remember seeing another of his operas, intended as a follow-up... something about the Borgias, or medieval Italy? I forget the name of it. It was premiered at the Royal Court, with Opera Factory... sometime around 1984-5... it was so desperately bad that even the composer had disowned it the last time I looked at his website, where it didn't feature at all.
I seem to remember something about that missing Nyman opera (not at the time - I was 6). I will make inquiries amongst my intimates to discover who told me about it. My main problem with The Man Who Mistook His Wife For A Hat, is that recording. Sarah Leonard has done Good Things for contemporary music but the music that Nyman gives her just doesn't suit her voice (but, ironically, seems to have created the monster that is her most commonly heard voice). Hearing her in Birtwistle (she was in The Last Supper wasn't she?) I was pleasantly surprised. And I have to say that I'm not the world's biggest fan of the tenor either (this is where I hope that neither of them are lurking around under pseudonyms...) |
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'is this all we can do?' anonymous student of the University of Berkeley, California quoted in H. Draper, 'The new student revolt' (New York: Grove Press, 1965) http://www.myspace.com/itensemble |
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Reiner Torheit
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« Reply #52 on: 00:00:07, 30-05-2007 » |
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I don't know the recording of MAN WHO MISTOOK, in fact. I saw it broadcast on TV when it was new (was it written for TV, in fact? I seem to remember it was a C4 commission?). Emile Belcourt played the Therapist on tv, rather well, I seem to remember. Since then I've seen two different productions, both of which have been good, and threw new light on the piece. One introduced Robert Schumann as an additional character, although I wasn't convinced by this idea.
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"I was, for several months, mutely in love with a coloratura soprano, who seemed to me to have wafted straight from Paradise to the stage of the Odessa Opera-House"
- Leon Trotsky, "My Life"
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IgnorantRockFan
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« Reply #53 on: 16:31:37, 22-01-2008 » |
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Oh dear. I unearthed this topic because Michael Nyman is on the programme of a concert I'm going to in April, and now I wish I hadn't. I don't think I've ever seen such a consensus of [negative] opinion expressed on any one topic on these boards Is this going to be the worst 20 minutes of my life? Michael Nyman gdm for Marimba and Orchestra (UK premiere; Royal Liverpool Philharmonic commisssion) (20 mins)
Composer Michael Nyman writes that “gdm is simultaneously a celebration of the London Routemaster doubledecker bus (RM) and a condemnation of the Mayor of London, Ken Livingstone, for taking this remarkable vehicle out of service. A few years ago, during the 50th anniversary of the RM, Livingstone was heard to remark that only a ‘ghastly dehumanised moron’ would deprive Londoners, and the world at large, of this beautiful, convenient transport icon: hence gdm, ghastly dehumanised moron.” |
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Allegro, ma non tanto
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oliver sudden
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« Reply #54 on: 20:06:14, 22-01-2008 » |
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Is this going to be the worst 20 minutes of my life? Unless your life has been quite sublimely unruffled I'd be very surprised if it were. |
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Reiner Torheit
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« Reply #55 on: 20:29:44, 22-01-2008 » |
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Is this going to be the worst 20 minutes of my life?
Not at all. I wouldn't make great claims for Nyman's music, but it's cheerful enough stuff to pass the time with - it certainly wouldn't deter me from going to a concert in which there were other items I fancied. I think the main charge against him is of being lightweight, and of persisting in writing music that's extremely "samey". Having said that, I think he's run out of ideas... a piece about "London Routemaster buses" sounds unpleasantly twee to me - the kind of thing BBC World Service makes programs about for people who live in distant places, and whose picture of Britain is a world of Tea Shoppes, cricket on the village green, and Miss Marple solving the case yet again. "Ninety-seven 'orse-power omnibus", anyone?  |
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"I was, for several months, mutely in love with a coloratura soprano, who seemed to me to have wafted straight from Paradise to the stage of the Odessa Opera-House"
- Leon Trotsky, "My Life"
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time_is_now
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« Reply #56 on: 21:50:28, 22-01-2008 » |
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I like Miss Marple.  |
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The city is a process which always veers away from the form envisaged and desired, ... whose revenge upon its architects and planners undoes every dream of mastery. It is [also] one of the sites where Dasein is assigned the impossible task of putting right what can never be put right. - Rob Lapsley
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Bryn
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« Reply #57 on: 22:17:04, 22-01-2008 » |
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Hmmm, and I'd rather like to hear this "gdm". I wonder if it will get broadcasted? I know there is a lot of nostalgia for the RMs, but having driven them, and their more modern replacements, I know which I would rather drive, or be passed by if I was on a bicycle (the near side mirrors on an RM are a sick joke). There again, if the replacement in question just happened to be a bendy bus, perhaps there would be something to be said for the RM after all.
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harmonyharmony
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« Reply #58 on: 10:59:56, 23-01-2008 » |
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Everyone's been very restrained and not mentioned (unless I missed it) Mr Nyman's recent press coverage which has been less than flattering. So I will.  But does anyone other than Richard Brooks think that Nyman resembles Larkin? |
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'is this all we can do?' anonymous student of the University of Berkeley, California quoted in H. Draper, 'The new student revolt' (New York: Grove Press, 1965) http://www.myspace.com/itensemble |
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harmonyharmony
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« Reply #59 on: 11:02:18, 23-01-2008 » |
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 Larkin  Nyman |
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'is this all we can do?' anonymous student of the University of Berkeley, California quoted in H. Draper, 'The new student revolt' (New York: Grove Press, 1965) http://www.myspace.com/itensemble |
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