Nico Muhly

From the Golden Globe nominated movie The Reader comes three arrangemetns for Viola and Piano.The Piano takes the lead with the Viola instead providing drones shimmers and swells.

'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

Duet No.1: Chorale Pointing Downwards is a work by contemporary composer Nico Muhly for Viola and Cello. The piece received its premiere at the Tenri Cultural Institute in New York in February 2004. Muhly himself writes of the work that it's the first in a series of short string pieces that serve simultaneous purposes as harmonic and technical studies for both composer and performers. Duet No.1 is constructed around a cycle of fourteen chords repeated almost without cessation. This drone-like cycle is subject to a few rhythmic alterations as well as two interruptions keeping thingsdynamic and exciting. The middle of the piece becomes in Muhly's words 'a sort of fervent perpetual-motion perseverance' in an attempt to combine harmonic beauty with what sounds like a musical exercise.

In the composer’s own words ‘Keep in Touch is a lament a sort of chaconne divided up into sections by more freely-composed cadenzas for the Viola.’ The electronic CD supplied with the sheet music includes bluesy singing from Antony Hegarty among other sounds and Muhly clearly relishes the ‘inbetweenness’ of the singing and the falsetto of the Viola. Muhly’s music in this piece plays freely with time and key in a postmodernist way making the ultimate solitude of the Viola touching. Contemporary American composer Nico Muhly is a prolific writer and arranger who at 32 is theyoungest composer ever to have been commissioned by the Metropolitan Opera in New York. His oeuvre includes two operas and many solo pieces and works for small ensemble Orchestra and Chorus and he has collaborated widely. Download the pre-recorded element  HERE . If you encounter any problems please email promotion@musicsales.co.uk .

Honest Music has in the composer’s words ‘a makeshift nature…the sad beauty of things coming together and things falling apart’. There are long expressive gestures with Romantic moments sputtering harp figures and ‘glitchy staticky’ noises. Contemporary American composer Nico Muhly is a prolific writer and arranger who at 32 is the youngest composer ever to have been commissioned by the Metropolitan Opera in New York. His oeuvre includes two operas and many solo pieces and works for small ensemble Orchestra and Chorus and he has collaborated widely. Download the pre-recorded element  HERE . If you encounter any problems please email promotion@musicsales.co.uk .

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

Viola Concerto is a piece composed by Nico Muhly for Viola and Piano Reduction. This piece is dedicated to the violist Nadia Sirota for whom it was written and by whom it was first performed. A full performance lasts around 24 minutes this is the Score and Part.

Nico Muhly’s Viola Concerto is a work for Solo Viola and Orchestra co-commissioned by Orquesta y Coro Nacionales de España Detroit Symphony Orchestra Festival de Saint Denis & the National Arts Centre Orchestra and Alexander Shelley. It was first performed on 6th February 2015 and lasts around 24 minutes. This is the Full Score.

Nico Muhly's A Long Line for solo Violin and Electronics. 'A Long Line for solo Violin and Electronics was written for violinist Erik Carlson and was originally meant for performance as part of VisionIntoArt's 2003 show Democrazy. The piece is built around a series of chords played by Electric Organ and articulated by Bass Clarinet and Bass Drum. These chords gradually shorten over the length of the piece as the Violin sings a long line over the texture. Towards the end of the piece the Violin is instructed to play a pattern of fast notes 'like a string exercise but extremely expressively.' - NicoMuhly Download the pre-recorded element  HERE . If you encounter any problems please email promotion@musicsales.co.uk .