Nico Muhly: Clear Music: Cello: Score and Parts

Written for cello harp and celeste.Clear Music (after John Taverner) was written at the request of the cellist Wendy Law during the summer of 2002. Clear Music is an extended exploration of a single measure in John Taverner’s (1490 1545) motet Mater Christi Sanctissima. What I attempted to do in Clear Music was to suspend this measure for as long as I could imagine in a single texture: the bright clarity of the celeste and harp. As in the Taverner I have structured Clear Music into a series of peaks featuring the highest registers of the treble voice—here the cello. I remember very vividly performing this piece and being struck by how distant the treble was fromthe other voices - sometimes there are spaces of over an octave between the treble and the alto - and I attempted to recreate the somewhat terrifying and exposed contours of these lines. The end result is I hope a prolonged and transparent recollection of the Taverner which exposes not only my appreciation for the music itself but also my response to performing it.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 

Noël! 3 is an exciting collection of Advent, Christmas and Epiphany music for mixed-voice choirs, from the easy to learn to the more challenging and unconventional. The contents range from the Baroque to the present: familiar settings of traditional and lesser-known carols through the ages to Howells, Berkeley and Warlock, and works by today's composers including Richard Rodney Bennett, Paul Mealor, John Tavener, Francis Pott and Richard Allain. Mixed-voice choirs of all levels will enjoy these new arrangements of favourite carols as well as stimulating original works for the Christmas season. / Choeur SATB Et Orgue (Ou Piano)