The new CD contains three works that were given West Coast premieres by the Chorale — “Expecting the Main Things from You,” “Bright Mass with Canons” and “First Service” — as well as the title piece, “Senex Puerum Portabat” and “Like as the Hart.”
Mr. Muhly, commissioned to write a short work to precede “The Corridor,” for the same ensemble and singers, produced an exquisitely eclectic setting of the Stabat Mater, a hymn that describes Mary’s sorrow as she stands at the foot of the cross.
Mr. Muhly described it as “very peaced-out Vermont starscape music.”
The night slowly descends into even more chaos. Folks hug. We go fetch another bottle of champagne. The fisting room gets occupied all of the sudden. Members of Jónsi’s band join us. At the very end of the night’s dictaphone recording, I later discover an eerie call to arms, Blair Witch-style. It sounds like it was shouted by the pair in unison, although there is no way of telling:
“GLOVES ARE OFF, BITCHES!”
Nico Muhly and Thomas Bartlett’s gay-straight back-to-back dueling-twee-piano shtick at the Kitchen.
Critics spend their lives throwing around adjectives after concerts, usually in the nature of good, bad or indifferent; and in my case, thrilling is a word that doesn’t surface too often in the vocab. But it did on Sunday at the Roundhouse. Three decades on from its glory days as a centre for cutting-edge contemporary [...]
This is one of those scores where the devil is in the detail, where the little instrumental touches and clever combinations are more appealing than the swooning themes.
Mr. Muhly’s appealing instrumental compositions drew on Philip Glass’s harmonic stasis and the rhythmic vitality of Stravinsky and Ligeti, mixed with a flair for electronic counterpoint that was all Mr. Muhly’s own. Yuki Numata, a terrific violinist from the ACME group, brought out an ardent romanticism in “Honest Music,” for violin and electronics.
Muhly’s sense of humor shines through in his music, too. Though he interpreted the likes of “Quiet Music” and
“A Hudson Cycle” (both from his ï¬rst album: Speaks Volumes) with all the nuance and gravity they merit, his
default mode is decidedly lighthearted.
In the final epic number, Muhly found his special alchemy, fusing the best aspects of classical and pop rather than boiling them down.