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Watching a master at work
Michael Nyman amid the working clutter at his desk and piano. Picture: Francesco Guidicini Michael Nyman: Music from and for Film Malvern Theatres ***** ONE of my favourite composers, Michael Nyman is
also highly respected worldwide as a pianist, conductor, author and
musicologist. This current European tour combines Nyman's
distinctive musical form with his unconventional style of observational
film-making. Promoted as ‘a very special and rare evening of piano music
and film' and ‘a fascinating insight into a visual and musical world
uniquely represented' I knew that we were going to experience just that.
I had been looking forward to this concert for months. I was already
excited. And then I realised we had the best seats in the house. Over the course of ninety minutes, the audience
was treated to compositions which accompanied a series of short films
made by Nyman as he has travelled the world over the last fifteen years.
Projected on to a big screen, each work or ‘Cine Opera' documents a
particular location, event, mood or group of people in a way which feels
intimate yet not at all intrusive. Nyman's odd angles and sudden splicing give the
footage a warm, friendly quality, so that we could almost be watching a
relative's home movies, albeit with a rather splendid soundtrack.
Everyday scenes are however always lifted above the quotidian by Nyman's
affectionate focus. ‘Slow Walkers' simply shows older people going about
their usual activities and ambling along streets, which in other hands
could come across as mocking or voyeuristic. Yet it is shot in such a
way as to convey Nyman's utter respect for his subjects and love of
humanity with all its frailties. ‘Love Train' is a bizarrely mesmerising piece
which features nothing more than train couplings and side buffers as
trains steam along endless tracks. Nyman shows us the strangely romantic
dances of pairs of buffers as they gracefully push and pull together and
apart, sometimes brushing against each other with their greased ends. To
me, this selection of cinematography showed Nyman as a man with a sense
of humour and also of wonder; a man who sees the beauty in everything
and everyone around him.
Some films were in vivid colour, others in black
and white. There were new compositions and adapted arrangements from
some of his famous film scores. Nyman didn't have a page-turner or even
a music stand. Instead he had a pile of wide sheets of music strewn
across the top of his black grand piano, which he would sometimes read
from, sometimes glance at and sometimes ignore as he watched parts of
the short films. When he had finished with a piece of paper he
simply threw it on to the floor behind him and continued to play. In
some short breaks between pieces he would stand and move to the centre
of the floor, bow three times and then return to his piano stool.
Dressed all in black apart from striped socks, glasses pushed up onto
his head, Nyman cut an unassuming figure. He strikes one as peculiar,
bordering on eccentric, clearly loving what he does but without
displaying even the hint of a smile all night. From my front row seat my feet could feel the
music's vibrations through the theatre's wood laminate flooring.
Watching Nyman's fingers close-up as they recreated music so familiar to
me was magical, and to see and hear the composer of The Piano
play sections of The Piano on the piano not two metres away from
me . . . Some moments simply can't be expressed in words. Once he'd
played music from The Piano I did find myself wanting a
taste of my favourite film score of his – The Draughtsman's Contract.
Inspired by Purcell, this grand and majestic soundtrack features a range
of instruments such as electric bass and saxophone which would clearly
render any reproduction without a small orchestra impossible. I had forgotten though that Nyman composes all
his work on piano and soon we were regaled with his solo version of
An Eye for Optical Theory. This was played alongside scenes of what
appeared to be an outdoor Italian feast day, with men playing a fast and
passionate game of ‘rock, paper, scissors' on a table laden with food.
Sun-drenched colours filled the screen, the men's chatter still audible
beneath the sound of the piano: a near sensory overload, and then
silence. For me it was a happy night. The whole performance was magnificent and moving.
Nyman's is music which touches the heart, and I had tears in my eyes at
several point throughout the evening. For me, the music would have been
enough, but the film portraits only added to the experience, with their
celebration of all human life and the marvel of existence. At the end of the show, Nyman simply bowed
again, clapped to show his appreciation of the audience, then fumbled
his way backstage through closed curtains behind his piano. An abrupt
finish, but fanfares and encores somehow would not have been fitting. In the foyer afterwards I thanked Nyman for a
beautiful evening. ‘Thank you,' he replied. ‘A woman came and told me
that that was the most miserable evening she's ever had.' There really
is no accounting for taste. 30-10-13 Amy Rainbow Michael Nyman: Music from and for Film moves on to Sardinia, Belgium and Luxembourg.
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