Decay Music [Remastered] - Michael Nyman

Advantages: Great tunes
Disadvantages: Recorded quality and overall blandness

...Jane Campion's The Piano is about a mute-by-choice Scotswoman Ada played by Holly Hunter (who won an Oscar for her performance). She journeys to the jungles of nineteenth-century New Zealand to marry a man she's never met, played by Sam Neill. Once there, she is horrified to find her beloved piano left on the beach until a man named Baines (Harvey Keitel) offers to let her play it in exchange for romantic favours. The music was composed by Michael Nyman, noted as a modernist and a minimalist. This is by far the most popular of Nyman's compositions, because of its easily accessible melodies and especially for the solo piano music. Nyman writes: "I began creating Ada a folio of material that I imagined she had in her head, that her fingers carried around with her, almost as if she had been the composer of it. It had to be "possible" mid... Read review

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Advantages: Beautiful music that weaves its way into ones soul
Disadvantages: I want more - 50 minutes is not enough!

...When Michael Nyman is constrained by moviemakers' demands he produces his most melodic, and commercial, work. His wilder excesses are tamed and his penchant for irritatingly and endlessly repeating a few notes until the listener screams for release is over-ruled. 'The Claim' soundtrack is a new classic and offers a prime example of Nyman's flowing and uplifting themes winding and twisting together. Orchestra led, with violins mostly to the foreground carrying the melody while the piano keeps the beat, occasionally surfacing with a theme to be picked up later. Thirty-seven musicians are listed in this incarnation of The Michael Nyman Orchestra, twenty-eight in the string section alone. The resulting multitude of gives the album a particular richness of texture. Bright clear brass soars over the strings on some tracks. On others oboe... Read review

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Advantages: Beautiful classical music
Disadvantages: Not enough variety

...After watching the film starring Ralph Fiennes and Julianne Moore, I decided to purchase the soundtrack to The End Of The Affair. It was a bit tough to find, but eventually I bought it. It was pretty expensive - in one store I saw it retailing at £16.99, which is overpriced for a one-disc album! The soundtrack is composed by Michael Nyman, who has a lot of musical experience under his belt. Throughout the film, the style of music is slow and classical. The soundtrack fits the mood of the film well. The main drawback of the soundtrack is that there are not that many exceptional pieces. They can begin to drag into each other, which is not helped by the fact that some songs sample the others. One standout track is 'Diary Of Hate', which I would recommend to anyone. There are 15 tracks overall, so it is a good length. The soundtrack... Read review

Ciao members have rated this review on average somewhat helpful