Michael Nyman Music from The Draughtman’s Contract

Michael Nyman
Music from The Draughtman’s Contract (1982)
Chasing sheep is best left to shepherds* 00:00
The garden is becoming a robe room** 05:06
An eye for optical theory*** 11:15
Michael Nyman, piano and director
Michael Nyman Band

My music for The Draughtman’s Contract neatly draws together some musicological loose-ends of 1967 with some not-so-loose compositional ends (and means) of 1982. The setting of the film England c.1695 suggested the use of (then) contemporary music, and immediately that of Henry Purcell not merely because he died in 1695 but because he was a better composer than anyone else in England at that time (and more or less ever since).
[…] One of the delights of working with Peter Greenaway is the possibilities it gives me of providing a ‘service’ and working precisely the same way I do when writing my ‘concert music’; but without The Draughtman’s Contract there would have been no opportunity to return, gratefully, to the music of my past, that of Henry Purcell.
Michael Nyman

Nyman's music is highly charged and persistently pushes the musicians to virtually impossible limits of technique which they respond to with rare dedication, offering original, imaginative solutions. But the mood, particularly in 'Chasing sheep is best left to shepherds', 'An eye for optical theory', is one of unutterable enjoyment and exuberant fun (a quality rare in contemporary music). By contrast, 'The garden is becoming a robe room' reveals a poignant, pleading, throbbing character where Nyman uses his musicians to paint dark, despairing colours, sometimes admitting a 'rude', maybe ironic baritone saxophone entry, but plumbing considerable depths of sorrow and anguish.
Annette Morreau

°According to Pwyll ap Siôn (The Music of Michael Nyman: text, context and intertext, page 96), these are the musical sources elaborated by Nyman:
*King Arthur, Act III, Scene 2, Prelude [as Cupid descends]
**'Here the deities approve' from 'Welcome to all the Pleasures' (Ode); E minor ground in Henry Playford's collection, Musick's Hand-Maid (Second Part)
***Ground in C minor (D221) [attributed to William Croft]
From https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Dra...