The low whistle, or concert whistle, is a variation of the traditional tin whistle/pennywhistle, distinguished by its lower pitch and larger size. It is most closely associated with the performances of British and Irish artists such as Tommy Makem, Finbar Furey and his son Martin Furey, Old Blind Dogs, Michael McGoldrick, Riverdance, Lunasa, Donie Keyes, Chris Conway, and Davy Spillane, and is increasingly accepted as a feature of Celtic music.
The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat is a one-act chamber opera by Michael Nyman to an English-language libretto by Christopher Rawlence, adapted from the case study of the same name by Oliver Sacks by Nyman, Rawlence, and Michael Morris. It was first performed at the Institute of Contemporary Arts, London, on 27 October 1986.
The Michael Nyman Band, formerly known as the Campiello Band, is a group formed as a street band for a 1976 production of Carlo Goldoni's 1756 play, Il Campiello directed by Bill Bryden at the Old Vic. The band did not wish to break up after the production ended, so its director, Michael Nyman, began composing music for the group to perform, beginning with "In Re Don Giovanni", written in 1977. Originally made up of old instruments such as rebecs, sackbuts and shawms alongside more modern instruments like the banjo and saxophone to produce as loud a sound as possible without amplification, it later switched to a fully amplified line-up of string quartet, double bass, clarinet, three saxophones, horn, trumpet, bass trombone, bass guitar, and piano. This lineup has been variously altered and augmented for some works.
À la folie is a 1994 French drama film by Diane Kurys with music by Michael Nyman. It entered the competition at the 51st Venice International Film Festival.
The Michael Nyman Songbook is a collection of art songs by Michael Nyman based on texts by Paul Celan, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, William Shakespeare and Arthur Rimbaud. It was recorded as an album with Ute Lemper in 1991, and again as a concert film in 1992, under the direction of Volker Schlöndorff, again with Ute Lemper, though many of the musicians had changed. The songs have been recorded by others and as instrumentals, and are published by Chester Music. The album has been issued by both London Records and Argo Records, though the covers are the same except for the logo.
Live is a 1994 album by Michael Nyman and the Michael Nyman Band. It is Nyman's 24th release and the fifteenth with the Band. It is the first commercial live album by the band, which had previously performed live on the magazine release, 'The Masterwork' Award Winning Fish-Knife. It is also known as "The Upside-Down Violin", the only new composition on the album, and the working title, Breaking the Rules, made it into many computer sales systems. The album's cover and booklet were designed by Dave McKean. Liner notes are by David Toop. Early printings of the album cover listed the first three tracks erroneously as "Queen of the Night", "An Eye for Optical Theory", and "Chasing Sheep Is Best Left to Shepherds"
Apocalypto: Original Score is the soundtrack to the 2006 film of the same name by Mel Gibson. It was released on the Hollywood Records label.
Man and Boy: Dada is a 2003 opera by Michael Nyman with a libretto by Michael Hastings. It tells the story of a friendship between aging dada artist Kurt Schwitters and a twelve-year-old boy. These two characters and the boy's mother make up the cast of the opera.
The Essential Michael Nyman Band is a studio album featuring a collection of music by Michael Nyman written for the films of Peter Greenaway and newly performed by the Michael Nyman Band. It is the seventeenth album release by Nyman. The album features liner notes by Annette Morreau, who describes the album as "a summation and digest of ten years of progress in the performance of music by a composer -- a composer with whom, so evidently, a group of friends and expert musicians intimately identify their total commitment, virtuosity, and joyous enthusiasm."
After Extra Time is a 1996 album by Michael Nyman with the Michael Nyman Band containing three tributes to Nyman's fandom of Association football: After Extra Time, the soundtrack to The Final Score, and Memorial. The latter is described as a remix, but is simply the 1992 recording from The Essential Michael Nyman Band. It was included in order to put it together with his two other football-inspired works. The album lists only three tracks, which has caused it to be erroneously reported that Memorial is track 3 and the others are all hidden tracks, but Memorial is track 26. Therefore, a track listing, as the individual portions of the pieces are not named, is not useful. The three pieces were recorded at separate times and thus have separate personnel lists.
The Composer's Cut Series Vol. I: The Draughtsman's Contract is the 51st album by Michael Nyman, recorded in 2005 with the Michael Nyman Band and released in 2006. It is the first in an unprecedented series in which Nyman began rerecording some of his film music independently of the needs of film production, and the culmination and refinement of 23 years of performances of the work since the recording of the original 1982 recording of The Draughtsman's Contract.
Mozart 252 is a 2008 album by Michael Nyman with the Michael Nyman Band, Hilary Summers, and Andrew Slater, celebrating the 250th anniversary of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart's birth. Although "Revisiting the Don," one of only two newly written works on the album, was commissioned and performed in 2006, the album's title is a joke on its lateness as an album, released 252 years after Mozart's birth. The album also includes "In Re Don Giovanni," Nyman's first composition for the band, which is based on the first fifteen bars of "Madamina, il catalogo è questo" from Don Giovanni, six selections from Peter Greenaway's film, Drowning by Numbers, in which he was instructed to base the music on the slow movement of Mozart's Sinfonia Concertante K. 364, and two duets and an aria from Nyman's television opera, Letters, Riddles and Writs, in this recording featuring bass Andrew Slater as Leopold Mozart and contralto Hilary Summers as Wolfgang.
String Quartets 1–3 is a 1991 album by the Balanescu Quartet and the fifteenth release by Michael Nyman. It is the second album of his music on which he did not perform or conduct, though he does provide liner notes. String Quartet No. 3 is built out of Out of the Ruins and became a fixture in numerous Nyman film scores in the 1990s.
The Composer's Cut Series Vol. III: The Piano is the third in a series of albums, all released on the same day, by Michael Nyman to feature concert versions of film scores, in this case, Jane Campion's The Piano, and his 53rd release overall. The collection is more streamlined and has fewer tracks than the soundtrack album, starting and ending with the popular "The Heart Asks Pleasure First."
Six Celan Songs • The Ballad of Kastriot Rexhepi is the 54th album released by Michael Nyman, who composed and conducted both the works on the album. The first, a setting of poetry by Paul Celan, was originally recorded by Ute Lemper and the Michael Nyman Band on The Michael Nyman Songbook in 1991, and here the band is joined by Hilary Summers. The Ballad of Kastriot Rexhepi is a new work created with the artist Mary Kelly. This is performed by the soprano Sarah Leonard with The Nyman Quartet: Gabrielle Lester, Catherine Thompson, Kate Musker and Tony Hinnigan.
Sangam: Michael Nyman Meets Indian Masters is the 46th album by Michael Nyman. It is a collaboration with musicians from India including U. Shrinivas and the Misra Brothers. It was released in 2003 and quickly cut out by its U.S. distributor. It was the last non-soundtrack Michael Nyman album to be released on any but his own label, MN Records, founded shortly thereafter. MN Records reissued the album in 2012.
24 Heures de la vie d'une femme is a 2002 film by Laurent Bouhnik, based on the 1927 novel 24 Stunden aus dem Leben einer Frau by Stefan Zweig. The music is by Michael Nyman, and the accompanying soundtrack album is his 45th.
String Quartets 2, 3 & 4/If & Why is an album by Simon Haram, The Lyric Quartet, and members of The Michael Nyman Band, featuring music by Michael Nyman. "If" and "Why" are songs written for The Diary of Anne Frank, where they were performed by Hilary Summers and the Michael Nyman Band. Here, the melody lines are taken by Simon Haram's alto saxophone.
The Composer's Cut Series Vol. II: Nyman/Greenaway Revisited is the second in a series of albums, all released on the same day, by Michael Nyman to feature concert versions of film scores, in this case, films of Peter Greenaway, and his 52nd release overall. The album is similar to The Essential Michael Nyman Band, although a number of tracks are on only one album or the other. In spite of being recorded in 1992, with the same lineup, Memorial is not the same performance as the one that appears on The Essential Michael Nyman Band or After Extra Time, which was recorded in Tokyo. This performance was recorded in London and is slightly less aggressively performed.
Acts of Beauty • Exit no Exit is the 55th album by Michael Nyman, the eighth on his own label, and the third of these to consist entirely of previously unrecorded work. He does not perform on the album, but composed and produced it. Acts of Beauty is a song cycle with texts by various writers commenting on the nature of art and beauty. It is performed by Cristina Zavalloni and Sentieri Selvaggi, conducted by Carlo Boccadoro. Exit no Exit was originally a vocal work for John Motson called Beckham Crosses, Nyman Scores, in tribute to the English association football team. Here, the vocal part is rewritten for bass clarinet, and played by Andrew Sparling of the Michael Nyman Band with the Nyman Quartet: Gabrielle Lester, Catherine Thompson, Kate Musker, and Tony Hinnigan.
