Nico Muhly

Nico Muhly's My Days for ATTB choir and five Viola Da Gambas. Parts for five Viols.This 16 minute piece of sheet music was commissioned by Wigmore Hall and the world première was performed by Fretwork and Hilliard Ensemble at Wigmore Hall October 2 2012.'My Days is a ritualised memory piece about Orlando Gibbons (1583-1625) written for two ensembles whose recordings informed so much of my musical development. I feel like I spend half of my life trying to trick string players to play like Fretwork and vocalists to singlike the Hilliard Ensemble so it was with enormous pleasure that I composed this piece. The text isderived from Psalm 39 which Gibbons himself set as well as an account of Gibbons's own autopsy which is a poignant 17th century semi-anonymous text. One of the most thrilling things about the sound of five violas da gamba playing together is the sense of their phrasing being derived from vocal music but made somehow electric and ecstatic through ornamentation and the friction of the strings. The piece has an idée fixe based on a minor scale with two possible resolutions and many ornaments. In between iterations the voices in rhythmic unison intone the psalm. It isn't until the autopsy text arrives that the voices begin to split into more elaborate ?Gibbonsy? verses and responses. A series of semiimprovisedfragments on the text 'Take thy plague away from me' introduces the third section of the piece where plucked strings create a halo around the text 'hear my prayer OLord.' The piece ends with the ornaments wildly exploded over the voices singing two words endlessly repeated.' - Nico Muhly

Version With Two Pianos and Percussion-Bright Mass With Canons by composer Nico Muhly was originally composed for SATB chorus and Organ Accompaniment but this arrangement features Two Pianos and Percussion. This is the set of Parts for this unique arrangement of a wonderful composition. This work was arranged by Buck McDaniel in 2014 and features an intriguing mix of percussive instruments like the Triangle Glockenspiel and Vibraphone together with the Two Pianos creating a wholly new piece that takes the original composition and transforms it with an entirely new sound and dynamic. The work is divided into four sections Kyrie Gloria Sanctus& Benedictus and Agnus Dei.

Nico Muhly's Looking Up for SATB and Orchestra. Programme note:Looking Up is a piece for large chorus and orchestra and is in three sections played without pause. In the 16th century a variety of psalters in meter were printed in England with the idea of making psalm-singing something that could happen easily at home with the rhyming meter being an aid to memorization. These translations are wonderful exercises in brevity and sometimes clumsy rhymemaking and were usually prefaced by a lengthy explanation as to their merits; the title of one of the first such volumes in English is: The Psalter of Dauid newely translated into Englysh metre in such sortthat it maye the more decently and wyth more delyte of the mynde be reade and songe of al men. I thought it would be appropriate to set one of these introductions and the first section of Looking Up sets the preface to Thomas Ravenscroft’s psalter (1621) in which he writes: “The singing of Psalmes (as say the Doctors) comforteth the sorrowfull pacifieth the angry strengtheneth the weake humbleth the proud gladdeth the humble stirres up the slow reconcileth enemies lifteth up the heart to heavenly things and uniteth the Creature to his Creator.” It begins meditatively but eventually grows agitated and fervent with a vision of the “quire of Angels and Saints” “redoubling and descanting” — an ecstatic and terrifying vision of the skies opening up. Ravenscroft then encourages the use of instrumental music for worship at which point a long acrobatic orchestral interlude with jagged edges antagonizes the choir who sing a kind of private anxious meditation on two pitches. One of the most delicious biblical texts is an Apocryphal prayer known as the Benedicite or the Prayer of the Three Children (the same who were rescued by an angel after King Nebuchadnezzar tried to have them burnt in an oven for not bowing to his image). The text is repetitive obsessive and a gift to composers

Three Études For Viola was composed by American composer and arranger Nico Muhly. Written for Nadia Sirot one of Muhly's friends. Three Études For Viola was designed as performance pieces as well as practice the Études help to deal with the messy fifth-based string crossings Muhly's harmonic language sometimes outlines. These three études can be performed in any order all together or singularly. The pre-recorded material for Three Études For Viola should be mixed in such a way that the Viola rides in the middleof the texture. Étude 2 however should favour the solo Viola. Download the pre-recorded element  HERE . If you encounter any problems please email promotion@musicsales.co.uk .

Big Time is a composition by Nico Muhly for String Quartet and Percussion (1 player). Commissioned by the Central Vermont Chamber Music Festival for their 20th anniversary in 2012 the performance lasts around 9 minutes. This is the Full Score.

Soprano/Piano-The world premiere was given by Jessica Rivera and Maryann Kim in Weill Recital Hall Carnegie Hall New York City on 13 March 2009. The text is taken from Psalms 63 and 56 and from The Gospel according to St. John.

'Diacritical Marks was written for the Chiara Quartet in 2011 and is in eight short movements. I have a huge anxiety about string quartets; they are normally meant to be giant expressions of a composer’s emotional life. Here I focused on details: a tiny dot above a letter a tiny swivel of the bow. The first and last movements are energetic and driving and the middle movements are more lyrical rhapsodic and/or floating. The quartet is bound together by a piece of drone music found in movements 3 5 and 7 in which the second violin and the viola play an interlocking repeating pattern ad infinitum while the cello and first violin spin very long outrageous lines on top. The piece lasts just under 20 minutes.' —Nico Muhly

Johannis Cantabrigiense-Nico Muhly's Third Service (Magnificat & Nunc Dimittis) is a work for SATB Choir and Organ Accompaniment. Commissioned by the Master and Fellows of St John's College Cambridge it was first performed by St John's College Choir on 29th May 2016. A full performance lasts around 7.5 minutes. 'The American composer Nico Muhly has often spoken of his love of the early English church music which he sang as a choirboy and his recent choral works include a Third Service composed for St John's College Cambridge. (Given his love of music by Thomas Weelkes we can perhaps hope for at least six more.) This setting though has nothing to do with the early English repertoire and is in a bold modern idiom more akin to Tippett's famous setting for St. John's. The Organ plays a varied and independent role throughout sometimes with dynamics that are quite different to those in the voice parts. The Organ part is sometimes written on two staves without further comment and it's not entirely clear what is required between pages 3 and 4 where three staves become two. The vocal parts include some modest vocal effects and there are Soprano and Alto solos in the Nunc dmittis. The Gloria of the Nunc is a varied repeat of the Magnificat Gloria together with a subtly reworked conclusion to match the general mood of the movement. - Geoffrey Webber Choir & Organ Magazine 

Nico Muhly's Small Raine for SATB.Commissioned by Tudor Choir. The first performance was given on 2 March 2018 at St Mark's Cathedral Seattle WA conducted by Doug Fullington.Duration: 6 minutes

Full Score-Nico Muhly's So To Speak for Wind Ensemble. Composed in 2005. First performed by the Boston Conservatory Wind Ensemble conducted by Eric Hewitt.   Programme Note:   So To Speak is an extended meditation on an anthem for Pentecost by Thomas Tallis entitled Loquebantur Variis Linguis (they spoke in manytongues). After organizing the material for the piece I wrote a melody that works against underneath and above Tallis’s lines to create counterpoint made of old and new elements. Patterns of aggressive woodwind scales and ornaments evoke some of the hysteria inherent in glossolalia (ecstatic speaking in tongues). The central section of the piece gestures towards an insect-like musical and religious fervor.  Duration: 8 minutes

The sheet music of Nico Muhly's work Recordare Domine for unaccompanied SATB (Soprano/Alto/Tenor/Bass) Chorus. Originally commissioned by The Tallis Scholars from the Lincoln Center of the Performing Arts and Lafayette College the composition had its world premiere on the 15th November 2013. The piece is a unique setting of a Bible verse from Lamentations and is as haunting as it is beautiful. Nico Muhly is a world-renowned contemporary composer who works in a dizzying number of genres. He has composed works for popular cinema Piano small ensemble Orchestra andChorus. This piece is for an unaccompanied four-part chorus consisting of a Soprano Alto Tenor and Bass and lasts about 5 minutes. Our Recordare Domine sheet music is the most accurate transcription available of this contemporary choral piece by versatile and virtuouso composer Nico Muhly.

Mixed Messages is a work for Orchestra composed by Nico Muhly. It was commissioned and premiered by The Philadelphia Orchestra and Yannick Nézet-Séguin their musical director. The premiere took place on 13th May 2015 in Philadelphia. This is the Full Score and a performance lasts around 11 minutes.

POD-I'm Only Sixteen! is a work by Nico Muhly taken from his opera 'Two Boys' commissioned by the Metropolitan Opera. Scored for Tenor and Piano Accompaniment the piece lasts around 3 minutes.