95112
NYMAN COMPLETE PIANO MUSIC
jeroen van veen piano
Michael Nyman (1944) Complete Piano Music CD1 57’05 Used in the film: The Piano 1. The Heart Asks Pleasure First I 4’16 2. Lost And Found 3’15 3. All Imperfect Things 3’42 4. The Promise 3’07 5. Big My Secret 4’02 6. The Mood That Passes Through You 3’19 7. Deep Sleep Playing 2’10 8. The Embrace 2’22 9. Silver-fingered Fling 4’23 10. Here To There 1’38 11. The Attraction Of The Pedalling Ankle 6’04 12. The Heart Asks Pleasure First II 3’05
CD2 53’40 Used in the film: Man with a Movie Camera 1. Odessa Beach 3’51
Used in the film: Wonderland 13. Jack 14. Franklyn 15. Nadia 16. Debbie 17. Bill 2
2’31 2’27 3’24 4’16 2’55
Used in the film: The End Of The Affair 2. Diary Of Love Used in the film: Enemy Zero 3. Digital Tragedy
3’26
9. The Schoolroom 10. If 11. Goodbye Moortie 12. Chatterbox Waltz 13. Candlefire
2’03 4’26 2’55 2’27 3’29
On this recording I used the scores as published by Chester Music. Some versions are different from book to book. Michael Nyman, Film Music for Solo Piano ISBN:0-7119-6722-9 Michael Nyman, The Piano Collection ISBN: 1-84609-239-6
Used in the film: The Draughtman’s Contract 14. Chasing Sheep Is Best Left To Shepherds
4’10
2’30
5’30
Michael Nyman, The Piano ISBN 0-7119-3322-7
2’52
Used in the film: Carrington 4. Fly Drive
0’58
Used in the film: Drowning By Numbers 15. Sheep ‘N’ Tides
Used in the film: Gattaca 5. The Morrow 6. The Departure
4’26 3’48
Used in the film: A Zed & Two Noughts 16. Time Lapse
Used in the film: The Claim 7. The Exchange
3’29
Used in the film: The Diary Of Anna Frank 8. Why?
3’10
Recording: 18 & 19 January 2015, Van Veen Productions, Studio 1, Culemborg, The Netherlands Produced by: Van Veen Productions for Brilliant Classics Executive Producer: Jeroen van Veen Engineered & Mastered by: Pianomania Microphones: DPA 2006A Piano: Yamaha Grand Piano C7 Software: Pro Tools, Logic & Sequoia All works published by © Chester Music Photo cover: Joeri van Veen p & © 2016 Brilliant Classics
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Michael Nyman Creating a movie soundtrack is creating a paradox. Or, to use Michael Nyman’s words: ‘I’m glad I’m not a full-time film composer - I think it might drive you mad.’ Soundtracks are tricky: they are invented to enhance the viewer’s experience, to strengthen what is happening on screen, maybe comment on it, but not to distract. At the same time, as a composer, you want to create music that can stand on its own. To be appreciated separately from the images and dialogues. To move listeners time and again. Exactly that is the quality defining the works of Michael Nyman. This British composer (1944) has been writing music for cinema for almost half a century. He collaborated frequently with director Peter Greenaway, worked with Michael Winterbottom and Jane Campion, wrote music for anime and even video games. The corresponding story lines could not be more diverse, but the music for all these narratives has one thing in common: its openness. Nyman invites the listener to come along on his musical journey. For years now, pianist Jeroen van Veen has devoted himself to minimal music. He recorded works by John Adams, Philip Glass, Simeon ten Holt, Julius Eastman and many others. For him, making Michael Nyman – Complete piano music is a logical next step. He has been looking forward to it for some time. ‘Nyman’s soundtracks are very important for the minimal music genre. Especially The Piano, his big breakthrough. Together with Yann Tiersen’s Amélie and Philip Glass’s The Hours, he reached a new, very large audience that has stayed around.’ Most of Nyman’s soundtracks are scored for a small orchestra. For Michael Nyman – Complete piano music, Van Veen exclusively chose pieces that are written down for keyboard. ‘I don’t want to manipulate this music, the arrangements must be from Nyman himself. In this collection, you will find every available title for piano.’ Starting with The Piano. Following Jane Campion’s successful movie (1993) Nyman’s music suddenly was everywhere. From restaurants to funerals, from concert halls to piano lessons. In The Piano, main character Ada, unable to speak, has only Photograph: Anton Shpigunov 4
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one way of expressing herself: through her musical instrument. Nyman got a call from Campion while he was watching Neighbours one afternoon at lunchtime, he told The Guardian. ‘She said she thought I was the one who could present a visual emotional world with the smallest number of notes in the shortest space.’ Van Veen agrees. ‘This music allows the story to unfold itself without having to explain too much. It really supports the images, allowing the viewer or listener to come up with his own story.’ For those already familiar with Nyman’s work, The Piano sounded especially lyrical. In the Greenaway-movies, like Drowning by Numbers or A Zed & Two Noughts, what you hear is what Nyman ‘naturally’ writes, he stated in an interview. A rhythmically driven, energetic kind of minimal music, full of twists in tone and colour. For The Piano, Nyman had to reinvent himself for two reasons. The first one was very clear: Jane Campion asked for something completely different. According to Nyman, recalling the aforementioned telephone conversation, she said: ‘I don’t want any of that Greenaway shit.’ The other reason was practical. Ada, the protagonist in The Piano, lives in the nineteenth century, long before the invention of minimalist techniques. So Nyman decided to fuse the salon music feel of Ada’s time and the modernist views of his own age. ‘As Ada was a radical character, I thought she could have been a radical composer.’ He immersed himself in Scottish folk music, like Ada would have heard it, and tried to piece that spirit in. ‘For me it’s one of Nyman’s best soundtracks,’ says Van Veen. ‘Also because this score gave an enormous boost to amateur piano playing.’ People wanted to relive the music, and the emotion of the music, for themselves. Another one of his favourites is the music for Man with a Movie Camera. ‘A silent film being totally different in nature.’ This Ukrainian movie from the 1920s is an avant-garde landmark. Director Dziga Vertov (himself a composer) expresses a futuristic view on daily city life, without a storyline, actors or even intertitles. In 2002 The Michael Nyman Band premiered their soundtrack for the movie – not the first one, but definitely one of the most evocative. Just like Vertov used to do, Nyman re-used existing material in a new context. Music for a Japanese video game, to be 6
precise. Very instinctively, he made a fresh montage of his score, and thus a parallel to Vertovs methods. ‘Sometimes the editing is quite as abrupt as his editing is.’ Nowhere in Man with a Movie Camera Nyman follows the images slavishly. Instead, he suggests possible emotions to the listener. An example is Odessa Beach, his musical expression of the scene Vertov shot at an overcrowded beach. We’re halfway into the movie, and we’ve seen all kinds of labour, technical invention, people cheerfully making it through the day. Now, for a short period, they are enjoying simple life. Swimming, sunbathing, playing with the children. Nyman’s music adds melancholy to it all, without judging. Moving people, but never imposing opinions on them – that is the characteristic trait of Nyman’s soundtracks. He gives extra colour to the story of a girl who has to leave behind her home, school and cat (The Diary of Anne Frank), without ever crossing the border of sentimentality. He gives an extra dimension to Jack, Franklyn, Debbie and other struggling characters in Michael Winterbottom’s Wonderland, but enables the viewer to decide for himself who to like or dislike. And above all, he offers beauty. Van Veen: ‘You never get tired of hearing Nyman’s music. Because of its very layered minimal character, because of its visual power, but mostly because it’s outstandingly beautiful. In a world full of misery, many people find comfort in his melodious vision.’ © Vrouwkje Tuinman
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Jeroen van Veen “Dutch pianist and composer, Jeroen van Veen, the leading exponent of minimalism today” Alan Swanson (Fanfare) “Jeroen van Veen has for many years been a powerhouse in the piano world of the Netherlands and beyond” Dominy Clements ( Musicweb-International) “The Maximal Minimalist Missionary” Raymond Tuttle (Fanfare) Jeroen Van Veen (1969) started playing the piano at the age of 7. He studied at the Utrecht Conservatory with Alwin Bär and Håkon Austbö. In 1993 he passed the Performing Artists’ Exam. Van Veen has played with orchestras conducted by Howard Williams (Adams), Peter Eötvös (Zimmermann), Neal Stulberg (Mozart & Bartok) and Robert Craft (Stravinsky). He has played recitals in Austria, Belgium, Canada, England, France, Germany, Hungary, Italy, Russia & the USA. Van Veen attended master classes with Claude Helffer, Roberto Szidon, Ivan Klánsky and Leonid Hambro. He was invited to several festivals; Reder Piano Festival (1988), Festival der Kunsten in Bad Gleichenberg (1992), Wien Modern (1993), Holland Dance Festival (1998) Lek Art Festival (1996-2007). Van Veen recorded for major Dutch Radio- and Television companies like AVRO, NOS, IKON, NCRV, TROS/ Internet, WTBC-TV & Radio (Florida, U.S.A.) and Moscow Television. In 1992, Van Veen recorded his first CD as Piano duo Van Veen. In 1995 Piano duo Van Veen made their debut in the United States. They were prizewinners in the prestigious 4th International Murray Dranoff Two Piano Competition in Miami, Florida. After this achievement they toured the United States and Canada many times. The documentary “Two Pianos One Passion” (nominated with an Emmy Award 1996) portrays them as a duo. 8
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The various compositions by Van Veen may be described as ‘Minimal Music’ with different faces, Crossovers to Jazz, Blues, Soundscape, Avant-Garde, Techno, Trance and Pop Music. His Minimal Preludes for piano, and his NLXL are some of his most played pieces worldwide. Currently Mr. Van Veen is director of Van Veen Productions, Chairman of the Simeon ten Holt Foundation, Pianomania Foundation and artistic director of several music festivals in Amsterdam. Culemborg, Utrecht and Veldhoven. He is also active as Overseas Artistic Director in the Murray Dranoff Two Piano Competition based in Miami. Over the last 20 years Van Veen recorded more than 114 CD’s and 5 DVD’s for several labels (Mirasound, Koch, Naxos, Brilliant Classics) and his own label PIANO. The recording of Les Noces (Stravinsky) for Naxos was stated in the New York Times as “ the best recording ever”. Van Veen is also praised for his productivity some say; ‘the man who records faster than his shadow’. www.jeroenvanveen.com, www.vanveenproductions.com
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Also available on Brilliant Classics by Van Veen
Riley ‘in C’ 95217 1CD
Tiersen, ‘Pour Amélie’ 95129 2CD
Einaudi Piano Music 94910 2CD
Yiruma Piano Music ‘River Flows in You’ 95069 2CD 11