Customer Reviews

The Very Best of Michael Nyman - Film Music 1980-2001

5 star:		(4)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Michael Nyman first got my attention with his most popular score to date, The Piano. Nyman's music in the film The Piano, I believe, has yet to be surpassed by any piano score to date. An accomplishment very well recieved by the composer himself, who's redone the score over and over again(I would too if I wrote it). Nyman's other works are not too familiar to me but they all sound very good. His work in Gattaca, although, is another one of Nyman's better scores. The score to Wonderland is probably the closes work to The Piano, feeling wise. Very intense and emotional. I give Michael Nyman 5 stars for his 21 years of composing music for film.

This truly is Michael Nyman's best works over an extensive period of time. This collection shows the range of his compositions and it is beautifully recorded. For any Michael Nyman fan this is a "must have"!

The films of Peter Greenaway are the perfect sum of craftsmanship : text , painting , photography , a minimalist script and frenetic exuberance . All the imaginable beauty and the unthinkable ugliness ; the hidden fears of the human being the timeless evilness . Greenaway films are made such a great symphony . You can identify the four movements in every single movie of this original film maker.
The happy joining with Michael Nyman was a very successful encounter . Because Nyman with his fertile creativity makes possible the most intimate motives and depicts with precision the right feeling and the implacable fate of the characters in the play.
From the draughtsman' s contract . to the sinister A zed and two noughts , passing for the cynical Drowning by numbers , the merciless vengeance in The cook , the thief , his wife and her lover and finally Prospero books based in the Tempest of William Shakespeare .
This album is a summation and digest of ten years of progress in the performance of musicv by a composer whom evidently is gifted and identified in his commitment , and joyous enthusiasm..

Most probably know Michael Nyman's movie music, and there is certainly nothing wrong with this collection from his movie scores, but he presents an even more interesting side with his other works such as Nyman - Noises, Sounds & Sweet Air / Bott · Summers · Bostridge. His music mesmerizes me and I fell in love with his minimalist music years ago as a teenager in part because it was unlike anything I had ever heard before. There is a haunting, spiritual quality to it. Everytime I listen to it I fall in love with this amazing genius all over again. Sample his works on this CD and if you fall under the Nyman spell too, try some of his albums. While I enjoyed this collection of his movie music, I prefer the albums for the specific film productions, such as the Piano The Piano and Gattica Gattaca: Original Motion Picture Soundtrack because the musical experience is more cohesive. The collection is good overview of his work.

Welcome to the word of minimalist classical music by Michael Nyman, the composer who has been credited with the birth of the minimalist movement. If you haven't heard of him before, chances is that you have heard his music already, since his compositions do get used in numerous film soundtrack, most notably in <The Piano>, which brought him numerous recognitions. Minimalist music can be quite fickled, you either get it or you don't. It owes its root to the folk music traditions, hence the emphasis is less on technical brilliance and more on the music's emotional impact. In this sense, this collection is a real mix. There are some tracks that are emotionally inspiring, such as 'fly drive' in disc 2, others struggled to make impact on me, but that might have to do with the mood I was in.

If you haven't bought his album before, this album is a good start, because it does give you a good overview of his past work. I would also highly recommend <The Piano> soundtrack, which should ease you into the world of Michael Nyman.