Michael Nyman

String Quartet No.1 is dedicated to the memory of Thurston Dart. It was commissioned by the Arditti Quartet and first performed by them on 23 September 1985 Warsaw. Duration 26 minutes. The score for this work is also availableon sale.

String Quartet No.3 was written for and first performed by the Balanescu Quartet February 1990 at the Queen Elizabeth Hall London. Duration 16 minutes. A score is available on sale..Quoting composer: In the summer of 1989 Icomposed a choral work Out of the Ruins for Agnieszka Piotrowska’s BBC2 documentary which dealt with the physical and emotional responses of some inhabitants of Leninakhan to the earthquake which devastated Armenia theprevious December. When he heard the recording of the work that I made with the Holy Echmiadzin Chorus under the fervent conducting of Khoren Meykhanejian Alex Balanescu suggested turning Out of the Ruins into a string quartet. There seemed no reason or opportunity to do this until I felt the need to add to the intensity of my experiences in Armenia the no less profound experience of witnessing the images of the Romanian revolution on television duringthe later part of December 1989.The compositional procedure was as follows: to take Out of the Ruins as a template on which the Romanian vocal or instrumental music would be superimposed quite often stretched into newintervallic shapes though the demands of the completely performed harmonic structure.

String Quartet No.2 was commissioned by Shobana Jeyasingh as a solo dance work: Miniatures. It was first performed by her with the Balanescu Quartet on 15 September 1988 London. Duration 22 minutes. Score available on sale.

Drowning By Numbers arranged by the composer from his sound-track for the film by Peter Greenaway for Violin Viola and Chamber Orchestra. This work was commissioned by the London Mozart Players and first performedDecember 1998 at the Warwick Arts Centre. Duration 20 minutes. Full Score and parts are available on hire from the publishers. Instrumentation: Solo Violin Solo Viola 2 Flutes Oboe Cor Anglais 2 B Flat Clarinets 2 Bassoons 2 Horns in F 2 Trumpets in C Bass Trombone Piano Strings (8.6.4.4.2).

5 movements derived from the score I wrote for the Michael Nyman Band in early 2009 as a soundtrack to the film 'Poczatek'. For this project I selectedextracts from classic Polish feature and documentary films of the 50s 60s and 70s and organised them into a sequence of 20 linked one minute 'single theme' films.This version was made specially for the FidelioTrio.  -MichaelNyman (2010)

For Solo Piano. As featured in the Lloyds TSB Bank adverts and the award-winning film The Piano.

String Quartet No.4 was written for the Camilli Quartet who gave the first performance at the Queen Elizabeth Hall London April 1995. It is dedicated to the memory of Nyman's composition teacher Alan Bush.This quartet is anarrative made up of a chain of twelve complete but often cross-related movements each quite simple in design. For instance the Scottish melody first heard in the second half of I is hinted at in the 2nd violin/viola in thesecond fast section of II and is directly quoted again during III and XII. The theme of the fast section of IV is taken up again in VIII; IX reverts to the mood of the opening of I while the rising scale/syncopated themes of II IX and the bass of X and XII are related. X also reintroduces the slow harmonics theme from VII. XII is (apparently) cast in the form of a baroque French rondeau. The main theme of VI was plucked out of the Quartet and used inmy score for Christopher Hampton’s film Carrington. Duration 40 minutes. A set of parts is available for sale.

Eos commissioned Nyman to write a score for the 10-minute silent film Manhatta a Jazz Age piece lacing together images of inter-way Manhattan with the (projected) words of Walt Whitman.Originally scored for large ensemble this piece is now available for Soprano Voice and Bass Clarinet.

The arrangement for string quartet was made at the request of Alexander Balanescu for the Bicentenary of Mozart's death in 1991. It was first performed by the Balanescu Quartet at the Queen Elizabeth Hall London 1991.Duration 3 minutes. A set of parts is available for sale.