From: rimikis@ntua.gr (Giwrgos Rimikis)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.movies
Subject: MICHAEL NYMAN - PETER GREENAWAY
Summary: A short presentation of the British film composer Michael Nyman
Keywords: Nyman - Greenaway
Date: 3 Apr 92 11:11:54 GMT
Organization: National Technical University of Athens



                             MICHAEL NYMAN
		    An article presenting the works
		    of the charismatic British film
                    composer.

Written by George Rimikis
Copyright 1992 George Rimikis



	Michael Nyman is a well known composer, mainly known for the
scores he created for the Peter Greenaway films. Nyman is one of the
few film composers who has managed to deal perfectly with the extre-
mely complicated problem of the harmonious combination of image and
music. Exploiting the  determinative role  of music in Greenaway's 
films, Nyman has created  unique soundtracks that are not  only to
be appreciated as just film music, but also as self-supporting music
masterpieces.

	Michael Nyman was born in London om March 23rd 1944. He studied 
at the Royal Academy of Music and at the King's College in London. He has
collected folk music in Romania, edited baroque music and written and 
opera libretto. Nyman has also been a music critic, writer and a music
lecturer.

	Since 1977 Michael Nyman has permormed with  his permanent
performing ensemble, called the 'Michael Nyman Band'. In addition to he
has worked together with many important international composers.

	He started composing soundtracks in 1968. As far as I know, his
first Peter Greenaway soundtrack was 'H is for House' (1976). He has 
composed the music for all the feature films of Peter Greenaway, except
'The Belly of an Architect'. Those features are:

	- The Falls (1980)
	- The Draughtsman's Contract (1982)
	- One Zed and Two Noughts (1985)
	- Drowning by Numbers (1987)
	- The Cook, The Thief, His Wife and her Lover (1989)
	- Prospero's Books (1991)

	Nyman's music is very simple in structure. It contains harmonic
motives that are repeated through all the composition. What makes this
repetition unique is his amazing talent to produce numerous variations
of the  same theme. Moreover Nyman's music presents admirable structural
and rythmical ties between those variations.

	The fundamental contribution of Nyman's music in the aesthetic
result of Greenaway's films can be realized, if one thinks that various
parts of Greenaway's films were conceived and filmed based on the pre-
composed music. Examining the Nyman - Greenaway cooperation, we can 
notice a continuous reference to previous works. Parts from different
soundtracks were developed from the same pre-existing music (Purcell or
Mozart).

	All in all, no one perhaps can better define and evaluate Michael
Nyman's work than Peter Greenaway himself.

	Peter Greenaway wrote for Nyman:
  
	'My enthousiasm for Michael Nyman's music has been a long one. 
The music's exuberance and energy is infectious. The music has always
seemed to me to be an essential counterpart of the additive and 
accumulative processes of film editing and arranging short elements, even
provocatively straightforward elements into longer and larger chains.
Building upwards out of small beginnings to construct large edifices,
like the elements of filmic montage making larger and larger meaning
out of a special collection of humble or simple images. Michael Nyman's
music is often very simple in structure - it shows its sceleton admirably,
it has a strong regard for melody, it delights in repetition, it has an
ironic sense of its own existence, it is nicely self-reflexive'



 Author: George Rimikis
         April 3rd 1992


NOTE BY THE AUTHOR: The author would very much appreciate your comments
on this article, as well as on Michael Nyman's - Peter Greenaway's work
in general. He also looks for early film scores  of Michael Nyman. Any 
possible assistance provided would be greatly appreciated.
Please respond to:
			rimikis@theseas.ntua.gr