Ashil Mistry

Nico Muhly: I admire him and his music. He’s so impossibly cool, and his music is so impeccably spectacular. I’ve always wanted to talk about him. So here we go:

I first saw his name when I watched “The Reader” on DVD sometime in 2009. I always find out who did the score when I watch a good film, and in this case it was Nico Muhly. I had never heard of him, but I watched the movie, appreciated the soundtrack, and went to indulge into the DVD extras (as one does), where there was this great interview of him which I watched patiently. The way he spoke was so articulate, but so articulately rushed. I first thought this guy was absolutely GaGa. I didn’t look him up or hear his name or anything for the next few days.

Meanwhile, I was 15, and already a massive fan of Steve Reich, and I was constantly checking his concerts page. I clicked the 2010 link for all of his 2010 concerts (duh?), and I saw a name I recognised:  ”Nico Muhly”. I asked myself where I had heard this name before, and I remembered “The Reader” once again. Anyway, his name was there because he was having a concert at the Camden Roundhouse on January 24th – after some research, I discovered he was conducting Reich’s City Life. I immediately jumped at the opportunity to go see it, and thought I might find out who this “Nico Muhly” guy was too.

That was my first classical concert I went out of the way to organise my journey to. The concert was at 7:30. I got there at 7. Even though the trains were broken and we had to take a bus rail replacement service which Mr M. had a hilarious thing about at the concert.

The first time I saw him was before that concert. He was going into a corridor on the side, following a few busy looking people. What first surprised me was his appearance. He was this tall, unexpected looking guy (whatdoesthatmean?!), wearing a black cape type thing. I was like to my friend, “OMG THAT’S NICO MUHLY!”. Some strange men stared at me. I was a bit loud. I don’t think Mr M. heard me, but whatever.

Then the concert started (Methinks I was one of the youngest in those audiences?), and I saw him, and it so rocked that it was was actually him, so wonderful and exciting; his way of speaking is just so fast and his music is buzzbuzzlaladingding, like. The concert was great, and pretty influential music wise, and slightly changed my life and the way I saw and made music, and he made us laugh quite a bit too. I find his writing so inspiring and hilarious to read. I think I’ve never laughed more at writing on a page than reading one of his blogs sometime early this year.

I particularly liked Step Team, and Sam Amidon’s (I SAW HIM IN REAL LIFE TOO AAAAH) “You Better Mind” which just rocks so much and I love it and Muhly’s “crazy” arrangement (which are VERY costume-like, as he says in interviews, as oppose to just dressing up and going to dinner – lol?).

It was a bit awkward for a moment, when Sam Amidon decided to come out with something along the lines of “Nico’s arrangement is pretty crazy,” and Nico was like “what?” and Amidon sort of muttered the same thing again. We sort of let it go. I remember crap like that.

I’d bought his CDs before that, and really loved all of his music. Then I decided to crawl the interwebs to find something new. I found loads of stuff, like A Good Understanding, Expecting the Main Things from you (which are both to be released on CD soon), Skip Town (since in the UK it doesn’t come with the Mothertongue CD), From Here on Out (more recently, one of my favourite orchestral pieces EVER), and other wicked stuff.

I’ve recently started to get my hands on the rarer stuff, and I love it, and I can quite safely say that I’m a follower of him, his twitter, his blog, and other stuff like interviews with him, one I came across yesterday is GREAT; here. He was described by someone as the “it boy” in contemporary classical music, and I tell you, he has bloody good reason to be the “it boy”.

Now he’s one of my two idols, and I’m undoubtedly obsessed with him, and I’m excited about everything new he has, which I haven’t heard yet, like Motion, Two Boys (I’m going to the premiere, like, hopefully?), Impossible Things, and stuff like that. His piece names are pretty awesome too. I can’t believe I just said “awesome”. I’m not American at all; I promise.

Thank you, Nico Muhly. Thank you for what you’ve brought to the world so far, and thank you in advance for what you will bring. I admire you and your work, and I hope others do too! Buy his music, and enjoy it. I would recommend Speaks Volumes first, and then Mothertongue. And perhaps a Sam Amidon album or two if you can’t get enough Muhly. I certainly can’t.

Last year, in October 2009, I found out about a London Sinfonietta Steve Reich commission. This news came about at the SR concert at the Royal Festival Hall. I recently came across the information sheet which was all about it. Here’s what I found:

• London Counterpoint is due for premiere in 2013.
• It will be written for an ensemble of up to 15 musicians playing against recordings of themselves, so a (theoretical) 30 person ensemble.

It’s great, isn’t it? It certainly will be great. SR likes to write for identical pairs of instruments – this is basically perfect. I personally think some of his best work is the stuff with the speech samples in them, like Different Trains, City Life or the Cave, and soon to be WTC 9/11 (Kronos Quartet, 2011 premiere).

I’m wondering if SR is going to use that bar phrasing he has done for his past 3 most recent pieces – the 6/8, 2/4, 5/8, 7/8, 5/8 structure. Listen out for it if you ever get your hands on a recording of Double Sextet,  2×5 or Mallet Quartet (live recordings only available so far for all of them).

I really want to find out what else this piece will consist of. I shall take a guess at the instrumentation:

1.1.1.1-1.1.1.0-perc:mar.vib-pft-1.1.1.1.1

That’s 15 players. SR doesn’t do a lot with brass, however. Maybe sacrifice a few brass players for percussionists?

1.1.1.1-2.0.0.0-perc:xyl.mar.vib.BD.SD-pft-1.1.1.1.1

or

1.1.1.1-0.1.1.0-perc:xyl.mar.vib.BD.SD-pft-1.1.1.1

It’s all very exciting. We can only wait and find out. Meanwhile, I have heard nothing about WTC 9/11. I just tweeted to them. Nothing yet. I think WTC 9/11 is going to win a grammy or something. I just have a good feeling about it. Especially because it’s going to have the sampled voices, and therefore (hopefully) the speech melodies.

What would I do without Steve Reich? Seriously now, what would I actually do?

The Steve Reich CD, “Double Sextet / 2×5″ is due for release on September 14th 2010. I think that day will be one of greatness.

Double Sextet, the 2009 Pulitzer Prize winner, is a particular favourite of mine. The interlocking pianos and vibes are just extraordinary. The fact that the bass notes extend all the way down to that low A on the piano is just amazing; it creates such a heavy, driving feel which I have listened to over 100 times. I don’t know how SR does it. He creates a strong bass in the pianos and vibes (the “rhythm” section), and somehow manages to conjure up some sort of harmonious goodness from the rest of the ensemble on top of it. Even the slow movement is beautiful – it is certainly one of his most tuneful and melodic pieces ever. That kind of stuff has never really been important to me (I have unusual tastes), but that movement just works. The rest of it, of course, is amazing. My opinion seems to always be that his third movements are the best. My opinion stands with Double Sextet. And with 2×5 for that matter…

It’s quite a crazy piece, 2×5. SR thinks it’s “cool.” I agree with him. In the upcoming documentary about him, “Steve Reich: Phase to Face,” he says the piece is for “rock people” which is quite funny. I like it. I’m not a rock person (usually). In other interviews he does go on a bit about how he found Bang on a Can so perfect since they can both read music and play in a typical rock style. It’s rare; that kind of perfection. More to the point, the piece itself is amazing. I love the modality. I love the third movement. I love the first movement. I love the fact that it has less dissonant chords than Double Sextet (i.e. those awkward #11ths in the clarinet which aren’t coupled with the 9th)(I don’t really know what I’m on about. I totally made that up.). I like the second movement. It’s nice. SR said it’s not really what the “rock people” would really want to hear. Ok. Well. It’s debatable.

Influence wise, these two wonderful pieces have been rather important in my musical thinking. I hired the score to Double Sextet, being the sad person I am, and I am about to hire the score to 2×5. My idea of fun.

I was recently blessed enough to come across excerpts of Reich’s two (fairly) new works. Mallet Quartet (2009) and Double Sextet (2007), the latter of which due to be my favourite piece of music of this year.

I first had a listen to Double Sextet (for 2 Pianos, 2 Vibraphones, 2 Flutes, 2 Clarinets, 2 Violins, 2 Cellos) on some amazing person’s YouTube channel, namely Pavel Karmanov, a Russian composer found here. And then I went on to discover a live recording from the Oberlin New Music Ensemble, and of course, Eighth Blackbird, which was the first time the piece was played by 12 live musicians. I really was quite amazed. The timbral quality of each one is very different – the pianos in the “iCQ Project” recording (which is conviniently in HD) are quite soft, and played by the amazing pianist, Ksenia Bashmet. The pianos, however, in the recording by Eighth Blackbird (et al) are very hard, strong and more obviously interlocking. I therefore have chosen to prefer the latter; I could listen to it all day long; in fact I have done. I called Boosey and Hawkes asking for the score; I think I’m going to get it and analyse it in all my sadness.

Mallet Quartet, completed only last year, is a very interesting piece scored for 2 marimbas and 2 vibraphones, or 4 marimbas (although the vibe parts are “very vibey”, says So Percussion member Jason Treuting). I like it a lot. The marimbas, generally, have rhythmically interlocking patterns, sort of behind the main feature, the Vibes. I was surprised at how melodic it was; I’d never really heard Steve Reich be so lyrical with his melodies. I liked it. Particularly at the modulations to the relative minor, which are rather musically orgasmic. I really like this piece. It is in three movements, which is fairly standard for Reich, and I have never heard anything like the slow movement. I think it is probably one of his most empty segments of music ever. Usually his music is so thick in layering and texture, but the second, slow section is very empty and almost has a quite fragmented feel to it, but is different, and is Steve Reich, so I like it.

2×5 had its world premiere in Manchester, which I didn’t go to . I really want to hear it. All I’ve really heard is that excerpt published by FLYP last year of Bang on a Can’s recording process, in which Reich’s head bops quite dramatically in all of his enthusiasm, like the amazing guy he is, found here. I particularly like this piece also, and I really want to hear more of it.

It’s going to be good; all of it. Thanks, Steve Reich.

Tiere bei guter Laune is done, thankfully. It’s getting annoying now. The next thing to finish off is Outride Occurence. It is also getting rather irritating. And I’ve decided on a name for the piece for Percussion Ensemble – “Variations for Percussion”. Oh yeah – I’m writing a piece for orchestra too. I’m putting a LOT on my plate.

Lots to do. Too little time to do it.

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