Michael Nyman: Draughtsman's Contract Suite: Orchestra: Score

Full Score-The first feature film collaboration between Peter Greenaway and Michael Nyman made in 1983 following a major series of short/independent films they made together - including The Falls and A Walk throughH. A draughtsman is commissioned by a landowner in the late 17th century to make 12 drawings of his property. Every note of the score was derived from the music of Purcell and was written for the Michael NymanBand. This concert suite which was made in 2001 and first performed in Hanover was specially revised for an all-Nyman concert given by the composer and the BBC Concert Orchestra at the Royal Festival Hall Londonin June 2003. Written for Orchestra and Harpsichord the suite lasts approximately 16 minutes.

Michael Nyman is a composer pianist librettist writer musicologist photographer and film-maker whose work encompasses opera concert music and film soundtracks of which The Draughtsman's Contract and The Piano arethe best-known. Since founding the Michael Nyman Band in 1977 which tours the world he has worked with leading film directors and has collaborated with artists such as Mary Kelly Damon Albarn Carsten Nicolai and the recentOscar winning Man on Wire star Phillippe Petit.Songs For Tony for String Quartet was composed in 1993 in memory of Tony Simmons.'I began writing a saxophone quartet on New Year's Eve 1992. Inthe early afternoon of 5th January 1993 I was informed that my friend and business manager Tony Simmons had died after a long and heroic fight against cancer. I immediately sat down and wrote the music which became the fourthsong in what became a 'memorial' quartet. The previously composed music was scrapped as I decided to give each player in turn an 'aria' of his own.The first song is a transcription of an actual song - 'Mozart onMortality' - which I wrote for the Composers Ensemble in the spring of 1992. The text by Mozart himself is all too appropriate: 'I may not see another day'. The second song is adapted from the music for the scene in JaneCampion's film The Piano where the mute Ada (Holly Hunter) pushes her chief means of communication her piano overboard. This film was the last major deal that Tony negotiated on my behalf. The third song a soprano sax solo isbased on a tune I composed some years ago but was saving for a special occasion.' - Michael Nyman