From: news@heurikon.heurikon.com (News Master)
Newsgroups: rec.music.misc
Subject: Pointer/Reviewish thing-"The Essential Michael Nyman Band"
Keywords: Minimalism, Tight Band, Loud, Throb, Hocket, Lurch
Date: 27 Jan 93 02:34:47 GMT
Reply-To: gtaylor@vme.heurikon.com (Gregory Taylor)
Organization: Heurikon Corporation, Madison, WI

Argo that some of you might find of interest: "The Essential Michael
Nyman Band" [Argo 436 820-2]. It's either a disk which highlights the
band or seeks to provided an overview of Nyman's writing for them, or
maybe both. This is Nyman's "band" - his core set of musicians who've
been with him for ages. It includes no small portion of the Balenescu
quartet, Saxophonist John Harle (who also has a recent disc on EMI of
"hommages" to Duke Ellington that some of you might find interesting),
and the whole gang, with Michael clobbering the piano as needed. We got
re-recordings of music that those of you who are longtime Nyman collectors
will have in your collections from the years that MN and the band did
their work for Virgin. There are two new pieces from the "Water Dances"
(Stroking and Synchronizing) that were not heretofore in my collection.
The works themselves stay close to the sequence of Peter Greenaway
films with which they are identified (3 from "The Draughtsman's Contract",
2 from "A Zed and Two Noughts", 2 from "The Cook, the Thief, his Wife and
her Lover", 2 of the "Water Dances" and a single piece from "Prospero's
Books). While I might not have specifically chosen the same pieces,
the single thing about this disk that positively grabs you by the 
throat is that sense of togetherness that can only come with years of
serious work together; beyond the fact that I much prefer the acoustic
space of this recording (particularly when it comes to the older 
material), the extraordinay thing about this set of recordings is the
combination of breakneck tempi, joyous abandon, and the tight turns
and "stop on a dime" playing of the MNB. Compared the this disk, the
playing on the "Draughtsman's Contract" merely clatters, and the
version of "Knowing the Ropes" from "Drowning by Numbers" is positively
turgid. When they have a chance to actually slow down to draw breath,
the production values of these sessions really shine (timbrally, this
seems a much richer set of performances than David Cunningham ever got
out of them. Although there's no producer listed, I cannot imagine that
he did these recordings - the sound and mix is just too different). 
The "Miserere Paraphrase" loses that lovely voice that *sounded* like
a boy (perhaps a woman with NO vibrato on the original recordings?)
in favor of soprano Sara Leonard and mezzo-soprano Linda Hirst. I'm
personally not quite as won over by this performance, although the
more ah.....classically inclined in your midst may really prefer it.
The two "new pieces" - the first of the "Water Dances" seems quite 
different in form and spirit to the rest of the disk. "Stroking's" 
opening chordal clusters give way to some of the best "throb over the 
ostinato" that I've ever heard from MN. It's almost.........Romantic 
(though not tonally). "Synchronizing" is a somewhat more predictable
Nyman blowfest at that dizzying tempo which dumps on Prospero's 
doorstep; a kind of jump-cut juxtaposition which opens with its high 
single-note "melody" giving way to John Harle blowing his lungs out on 
sax behind, which parts for some wordless female vocalizing, only to turn 
on yet another dime and pick up speed before dumping one on Prospero's 
doorstep.
From: gtaylor@vme.heurikon.com (Gregory Taylor)