Nico Muhly » Projects

Stabat Mater Dolorosa

fmyers — Wed, 18 Aug 2010 15:15:36 +0000

My Stabat Mater is a very simply-constructed piece of music. I knew I wanted to write a duet, a piece of religious music, and something to go along with a bit of Birtwistle. My initial instinct was to base the piece on drones, as Birtwistle’s music has so very many notes, but then I decided that an austere but ecstatic approach was the best to fill a coherent evening. I asked my friend Craig Lucas to paraphrase the Stabat Mater text—which describes the Virgin Mary weeping at the foot of the cross on which her son is crucified. The piece is organized by separating each phrase of the text with a moment of silence, with the exception of the last three, which are joined with a frenzied chorale with improvised dynamics from the harp, winds and strings.

Pater Noster (2008)

fmyers — Wed, 26 May 2010 16:05:20 +0000

Pater Noster is just that, a setting of the “Our Father” text. Every composer has to have one of these! This setting attempts to reference Igor Stravinsky’s unaccompanied sacred music, notably, his setting of this same text. I bought a recording of the King’s Singers singing this when I was younger, and listened to it obsessively. I have never heard this piece performed live; it is an enormous pleasure to finally hear this miniature.

Text

Pater Noster

Pater noster, qui es in caelis:
sanctificetur Nomen Tuum;
adveniat Regnum Tuum;
fiat voluntas Tua,
sicut in caelo, et in terra.
Panem nostrum cotidianum da nobis hodie;
et dimitte nobis debita nostra,
Sicut et nos dimittimus debitoribus nostris;
et ne nos inducas in tentationem;
sed libera nos a Malo. Amen.

Our Father, which art in heaven,
hallowed be thy name;
thy kingdom come;
thy will be done,
in earth as it is in heaven.
Give us this day our daily bread.
And forgive us our trespasses,
as we forgive them that trespass against us.
And lead us not into temptation;
but deliver us from evil.
Amen.

The Principles of Uncertainty (2007)

fmyers — Wed, 26 May 2010 15:50:47 +0000

I have no idea how to describe the strangeness of this song cycle; in true modern fashion, it started as a blog on the New York Times, consisting of paintings and text by Maira Kalman. Maira, a longtime friend and hero of mine, asked me to set all of the questions she asked on the blog over the course of a year. I set all the questions, as well as her entire melancholic entry for the month of February. The ensemble that made the most sense at the time was solo counter-tenor, violin, cello, piano, and banjo.

Text

The Principles of Uncertainty

1. What is this book? What is anything? Who am I? Who are you? What is happiness? I ask you, what is happiness? What is happiness? How could young Nabokov tolerate such displacement, such loss? How could my mother tolerate such displacement, such loss? Could my mother have married Nabokov? Would Nabokov have been good to my mother? What is the most important thing? I walk behind people who are old. How can they function? How can I help? Step. Step. Step. How are we all so brave as to take step after step day after day? How are we so optimistic, so careful not to trip and yet do trip then get up and say O. K.

I want to grow old gracefully, naturally: is such a thing possible? The sun will explode five billion years from now: Set your watches. The man dances on salt. Why? The man is disgusted. Why can’t people tell the truth? the woman stands under a tree. How do you go mad? How do you go not mad? The truth is everybody gets on everybody’s nerves. Everybody gets on everybody’s nerves. Right? Right. Right? Right. And the cake, and the cake: It was a mocha cream cake. And the inner peace? there was zero inner peace.

2. What is this fragment? This hard wisp? of what? Of darkness of thought, or immensity of the universe? A dream? A foreboding? Was Freud right? or Wittgenstein right? Can we speak? May I say something? No? Wittgenstein designed a house for his sister. Here is the radiator. To say that he found God in the details would be an understatement But how would he define “God?” Pushkin Pushkin Pushkin “” did he die in a duel? Yes. He died in a duel. What does all this have to do with that young woman with the crazy great hairdo with four bobby pins and two rubber bands? What does this have to do with bobby pins and radiators and Kokoshniks? One thing leads to another. Spring is in the air, don’t you think?

3. The man dances on salt. A package arrives wrapped in newspaper and tied with strips of fabric. The newspaper has a phto of a man. The man is lying in the snow, dead. Here is the man. His hat flew off his head. I hope he is not really dead, just enjoying a refreshing lie-down in the snow. The woman leans over in anguish: not about that man but about all sad things; it happens quite often in February. She sings a lullaby about angels watching over the girl. You cannot help but notice that that is an awful lot of hair to wash and comb every day. The man stands behind the man. The seated man thinks, “For heaven’s sake, stop standing behind me. You are driving me mad. It’s freezing here. It’s February, and it’s impossible.” The woman stood in front of the tree before she went mad. She wrote a book, and then she went mad The woman is very ill. Her little dog never leaves her side. These twin sisters walking down the street in Budapest are cousins. There are black stripes on their sleeves. The sisters will never meet this man, but I have, and he has black stripes on the sleeves of his magnificent handstitched robe. He is a monk. On his card it says Inner Peace Center. My parents had a tea party in 1963. There was zero inner peace at this party. My parents were barely speaking. The heart breaks. Someone does or does not go mad. It is February, and all is forgiven.

4. The man asked the woman a dangerous question: “You don’t want me to kill her, do you?” I can’t ask any more questions. Was everything not said? Was everything not understood? Keep calm and carry on! Keep Was everything wrong? Will everything be wrong? Will we celebrate? Will we be kind? Will the world blow up? Will we eat egg salad sandwiches? Will we tell lies? The man asked the child, “what’s wrong?” The man asked the woman, “what’s wrong?” The child asked the parent, “What’s wrong?” The woman asked the child, “what kind of cake shall I bake for you?” What kind of cake should I bake for you? What kind of cake shall I bake for you?

Like as the Hart (2004)

fmyers — Wed, 26 May 2010 15:11:49 +0000

Like as the Hart is my response to Herbert Howells’s famous setting of this Psalm paraphrase. I have always been obsessed with the length of Howells’s melodies and the way that the harmonies trail behind the tunes like halos. In my version, I invert this relationship, with massive elongated harmonies dragging melodic fragments behind them. I arranged the harmonies in a large arch form with shrinking and expanding rhythms on either side of the central point (on the word “God.”)

Text

Like as the Hart

Like as the hart desireth the waterbrooks,
so longeth my soul after thee, O God.
My soul is athirst for God, yea, even for the living God
when shall I come to appear before the presence of God?

Seeing is Believing

Nico — Tue, 29 Jan 2008 17:32:43 +0000

Seeing is Believing references the exciting and superstitious practice of observing and mapping the sky; while writing it, I wanted to mimic the process by which, through observation, a series of points becomes a line ““ this seemed like the most appropriate way to think about a soloist versus an orchestra. The electric violin is such a specifically evocative instrument and has always reminded me of the 1980′s, and I tried, at times, to reference the music attendant to 80′s educational videos about science, which always sounded vast and mechanical “” and sometimes, quite romantic.

The music begins and ends with the violin creating its own stellar landscape through a looping pedal, out of which instruments begin to articulate an unchanging series of eleven chords which governs the harmonic language of the piece. Three minutes in, the woodwinds begin twittering in what seems to be random, insect-like formations. Eventually, the piano and solo violin “map” them into the celestially pure key of C major; rapturous pulses ensue. A slightly more stylized and polite version of the insect music appears, and the violin sings long lines above it. After a brief return to the first music, slow, nervous music alternates with fast, nervous music. The fast music takes over, pitches are scattered around, the violin calls everybody back to order with forty repeated notes; rapturous pulses again ensue. The piece ends as it began, with looped educational music depicting the night sky.

Seeing is Believing
Live recording ““ January 7, 2008
Thomas Gould, violin
Nicholas Collon conducting Aurora Orchestra

Wish You Were Here

Nico — Sat, 16 Jun 2007 14:59:04 +0000

I’ve always suspected that cartoons and illustrations do a better job capturing the emotional content of the unknown than pictures and first-hand narration. I have a picture in my head of the illustrators of the 1940s and 1950, holed up in Belgium drawing the tribal peoples of the Congo, or in California articulating gorgeous Arabian landscapes for early animated films, participating along the way in all of the politically charged problems that arise from empires, colonies, and the abuses of political power. There is something inherently romantic about willfully ignoring the complexities of drawing on sources; artists who ignore political overtones go on to inspire the next generation who, in turn, worry about them too much, and so on and so forth in an unending cycle of guilt and influence. Wish You Were Here, written for the Boston Pops, pays homage to Colin McPhee, one of the first western musicologists to study Balinese gamelan, as well as to the great illustrators Carl Barks and HergÃ© (responsible for Donald Duck & Tintin, respectively). I tried to write a completely romantic and fanciful gamelan-influenced piece, attempting nothing but the most superficial authenticity. On top of this twittery and excited music, a long, lonesome melody unfolds. After a desolate interlude with severe, ship’s-horn brass, the energetic patterns start again, and the long line returns, this time with a triumphant, revelatory ending.

Syllables

Nico — Wed, 30 May 2007 12:21:27 +0000

Syllables is an exploded setting of an old Icelandic text describing the end of the world. I say exploded as I elected to set the text both in English, fragments of Old Icelandic, as well as nonsense syllables taken from both languages. There is a constant, anxious pulse throughout the first section, which ends with a giant unison and the entire choir singing the same text for the first time in the piece. This texture melts into an aquatic, lilting piano accompaniment, over which a long, long line eventually dissolves into unison chordal syllables, as if the last things standing are the fragments of language.

Syllables was commissioned by the Brooklyn Youth Chorus as part of their 2006-2007 commissioning season, alongside works by Paul Morvaec and David Lang.

Read a review here.

Texts

Icelandic texts:
SÃ³l tÃ©r sortna, sÃgr fold Ã mar,
hverfa af himni heiÃ°ar stjÃ¶rnur;
geisar eimi ok aldrnari,
leikr hÃ¡r hiti viÃ° himin sjÃ¡lfan.

Geyr nÃº Garmr mjÃ¶k fyr GnÃpahelli;
festr man slitna, en freki renna.

SÃ©r hon upp koma Ã¶Ã°ru sinni
jÃ¶rÃ° Ã³r Å“gi iÃ°jagrÅ“na;
falla forsar, flÃ½gr Ã¶rn yfir,
sÃ¡ er Ã¡ fjalli fiska veiÃ°ir.

Ãžar munu eptir undrsamligar
gullnar tÃ¶flur Ã grasi finnask,
Ã¾Ã¦rs Ã Ã¡rdaga Ã¡ttar hÃ¶fÃ°u.

VÃ¶luspÃ¡ 57-59, 61

English texts:
The sun turns black, earth sinks in the sea,”¨The hot stars down from heaven are whirled;”¨Fierce grows the steam and the life-feeding flame,”¨Till fire leaps high about heaven itself.

Now Garm howls loud before Gnipahellir,”¨The fetters will burst, and the wolf run free;”¨Much do I know, and more can see”¨Of the fate of the gods, the mighty in fight.

Now do I see the earth anew”¨Rise all green from the waves again;”¨The cataracts fall, and the eagle flies,”¨And fish he catches beneath the cliffs.

In wondrous beauty once again”¨Shall the golden tables stand mid the grass,”¨Which the gods had owned in the days of old.

Trans. Henry Adams Bellows (1923)

Radiant Music

Nico — Fri, 18 May 2007 15:38:37 +0000

Radiant Music was written for Alice K. Dade at her request for a short recital piece. The tape part is made up of several episodes of shimmering music for electric flutes, dulcimers, organs, baroque strings, trumpet, and choir. This piece is focused on a simple progression of three chords; this progression appears in the sequence that opens the piece. This sequence reappears in each episode as a harmonic goal for the flute, whose part circumnavigates it but never hits it exactly. Also at play in Radiant Music is a notion of fast music that moves slowly versus slow music that moves quickly. This is most evident in the “Throbbing” music which is very fast, but has an immensely slow harmonic motion, and in the conclusion, which is made of one chord reworked over a long stretch of time. Radiant Music is dedicated to Alice K. Dade.

Performance Notes
Radiant Music requires a pair of stereo speakers, placed as far apart on the stage as possible. The tape requires manipulation twice during the piece: at the start and conclusion of the cadenza. If possible, an assistant should execute this pausing and recommencing, but if necessary, the performer can control the tape from the stage.

I Cannot Attain Unto It

Nico — Fri, 18 May 2007 15:30:46 +0000

I Cannot Attain Unto It is a setting of a section of Psalm 139 arranged such that certain syllables repeat and cycle around each other. The harmonic motion of the piece is through common tones, a method in which a single note is sustained through two related or unrelated keys. The use of the repetition is meant to be at once devotional and hypnotic. Mr. Muhly said he has been drawn to the psalms since he was a young child. “Their obsessive repetition and turns of phrase has always fascinated me. Every time I set one, I learn something new about the strategic use of repetition.” I Cannot Attain Unto It was commissioned by the Manhattan Choral Ensemble.

Live Recording
The Manhattan Choral Ensemble
Thomas Cunningham, conductor

Text

Such knowledge is too wonderful for me;
it is high, I cannot attain unto it.
Whither shall I go from thy spirit?
or whither shall I flee from thy presence?
If I ascend up into heaven, thou art there:
if I make my bed in hell, behold, thou art there.
- Psalm 139, 6-8

The Sweets of Evening

Nico — Fri, 18 May 2007 15:22:16 +0000

The Sweets of Evening (2006) was written for Dianne Berkun and the Brooklyn Youth Chorus. Having worked with this group of musicians many times before, I was honored to finally write them a piece. Having sung in a boy choir myself, I am fascinated and intimate with the changing nature of young voices, and I looked for a text that is itself transitory ““ here, depicting the movement between dusk and night. I have long been a great fan of Christopher Smart’s poetry, and particularly of Benjamin Britten’s setting of fragments from Jubilate Agno; my own setting here nods to Britten in its episodic nature and, I hope, generosity towards the singers. The Sweets of Evening lasts six and one half minutes. ““Nico Muhly

The Brooklyn Youth Chorus
Dianne Berkun, conductor

Text

The Sweets of Evening by Christopher Smart (1722-1771)

The sweets of evening charm the mind,
Sick of the sultry day;
The body then no more confin’d,
But exercise with freedom join’d,
When Phoebus sheathes his ray.

While all-serene the summer moon
Sends glances thro’ the trees,
And Philomel begins her tune,.
And Asteria too shall help her soon
With voice of skillful ease.

A nosegay, every thing that grows,
And music, every sound
To lull the sun to his repose;
The skies are colour’d like the rose
With lively streaks around.

Of all the changes rung by time
None half so sweet appear,
As those when thoughts themselves sublime,
And with superior natures chime
In fancy’s highest sphere.

Duet No 1: Chorale Pointing Downwards

Nico — Fri, 18 May 2007 04:49:04 +0000

Duet N^o1: Chorale Pointing Downwards is the first in a series of short string pieces that serve as harmonic and technical studies for both composer and performers. Duet N^o 1 is constructed around a cycle of fourteen chords repeated almost without stopping throughout the work. However, the cycle is subject to several simple rhythmic processes and two cryptic interruptions and, by the middle, assumes a sort of fervent perpetual-motion perseverance. Here, I attempted to convey a kind of harmonic rapture with technical reserve (music that sounds like a string exercise). The piece ends slowly and quietly, with a series of ascending and descending scales trailing the fourteen chords behind them. Duet N^o 1 is dedicated to Nadia Sirota with great thanks.

First Service

Nico — Thu, 17 May 2007 15:09:11 +0000

These canticles were first performed in November, 2004, at Girton College, Cambrdige, and then at Clare College , Cambridge. They were subsequently broadcast on the BBC 3′s Choral Evensong programme in February, 2005.

The Magnificat features an anxious two-note octave in the organ, nervously twitching in anticipation. The Nunc Dimittis (which is one of my favorite things written in the English language) starts slowly, and then focuses all of its energy towards the beginning of the Gloria Patri, a New Testament harmonic culling of everything that has come before it. ““ Nico Muhly

Many thanks to Judith Clurman for organizing the performances.

Magnificat

Nunc Dimittis

Clare College Choir
James McVinnie, organ
Tim Brown, conductor

Texts

MAGNIFICAT
My soul doth magnify the Lord,
and my spirit hath rejoiced in God my Saviour.

For he hath regarded the lowliness of his handmaiden.
For behold, from henceforth all generations shall call me blessed.
And his mercy is on them that fear him throughout all generations.

He hath shewed strength with his arm.
He hath scattered the proud in the imagination of their hearts.
He hath put down the mighty from their seat
and hath exalted the humble and meek.
He hath filled the hungry with good things.
My soul doth magnify the Lord.
He remembering his mercy hath holpen his servant Israel
as he promised to our forefathers Abraham, and his seed forever.
Gloria Patri

NUNC DIMITTIS

Lord, now lettest thou thy servant depart in peace : according to thy word.
For mine eyes have seen : thy salvation,
Which thou hast prepared : before the face of all people;
To be a light to lighten the Gentiles : and to be the glory of thy people Israel.
Gloria Patri

The backside of King’s College Chapel, with Clare College at left

Joshua

Nico — Thu, 17 May 2007 13:10:10 +0000

I wrote the soundtrack to a film called Joshua, directed by George Ratliff, with Vera Farmiga, Sam Rockwell, and Jacob Kogan, (who weirdly appeared in an episode of Wonder Showzen). It is a thriller involving a small boy (who is a piano prodigy) plotting against his family; the score is a piano-based score with a lot of orchestral halo. Fox Searchlight is going to be releasing it in July, 2007.

Below, an excerpt from the end of the film, a slow and tense piece. I am really happy with the way this particular nugget turned out.

Excerpt from Joshua
Caroline Pliszka, solo violin

NB The link above ““ which I will keep up as long as it is extant, has a preview of the film which uses a bunch of my music in the first two thirds, and then when the pace of the preview heats up, the sort of typical Showgirls synth drum stuff starts. Culturally, the way we prefer to indicate “excitement” has always been an endlessly fascinating thing to me, because I feel like I have a completely alternate way of getting at this sort of tension.

Joshua was recorded by Dan Bora at the Looking Glass Studios in September, 2006.

Choking Man

Nico — Wed, 16 May 2007 23:03:14 +0000

I wrote the soundtrack to the movie Choking Man, directed by Steve Barron. It’s a really great movie, I think, and the score is very important to it, which I like, and they gave me an enormous amount of flexibility in how much music there should be and where, etc. With Dan Bora, I created a sound world comprising a small ensemble, and then a spatialized mini-gamelan of gongs, bells, guitars and pianos. We recorded at the Looking Glass Studios in January, 2006.

Choking Man M17: Thanksgiving Day

Choking Man M20: Thanks

Wonder Showzen

Nico — Wed, 16 May 2007 22:00:29 +0000

I scored an episode of the MTV2 show Wonder Showzen, which you can buy on iTunes or on DVD. I had a great time writing it; the people who make that show are some of the smartest people around. The premise of the episode that I scored (A Clarence Special Report: Compelling Television) is that this demented puppet, Clarence (at left), asks people sitting on park benches what they think of TV, and then he demands that they, in turn, “make good TV.” The results are scored. Sometimes this ended up demanding outrageous miniatures, and sometimes it ended up secretly heartbreaking. The score is for chamber orchestra, and was recorded by Dan Bora at the Looking Glass Studios in April, 2006.

Wonder Showzen M18: Birds

Wonder Showzen M7: Tax Guy
Claire T. Bryant, solo cello