Contemporary American composer Nico Muhly is a prolific writer and arranger who at 32 is the youngest composer ever to have been commissioned by the Metropolitan Opera in New York. His oeuvre includes two operas and many solo pieces and works for small ensemble Orchestra and Chorus. Muhly has collaborated widely. This Choral work manifests some influences of Phillip Glass for whom he has previously worked. Like As The Hart is Muhly’s response to Herbert Howells’s setting of the psalm though in this version elongated harmonies ‘drag’ melodic fragments behind them.

Three Études For Viola was composed by American composer and arranger Nico Muhly. Written for Nadia Sirot one of Muhly's friends. Three Études For Viola was designed as performance pieces as well as practice the Études help to deal with the messy fifth-based string crossings Muhly's harmonic language sometimes outlines. These three études can be performed in any order all together or singularly. The pre-recorded material for Three Études For Viola should be mixed in such a way that the Viola rides in the middleof the texture. Étude 2 however should favour the solo Viola. Download the pre-recorded element  HERE . If you encounter any problems please email promotion@musicsales.co.uk .

For Nine Male Voices And Orchestra-Luminous Body is a collaboration between Nico Muhly and Craig Lucas written in the period immediately following their narratively charged opera 'Two Boys'. Luminous Body is as a result abstract and poetic in gesture and form. The text interpolates among other things stylized versions of the teachings of Christ Buddha Mohammed and Plato; these are scrambled and re-contextualized and in a sense serve as background for the textures of the combination of nine male Voices and Orchestra.Part 1 introduces the chord structure that governs the entire piece and ends with the repeated words ?only your will is your own.?The second and third parts loosely dealing with the Devil and the importance of choosing one?s words are based on drones generated by the Voices and the strings; the constant (but slightly morphing) texture is meant to be meditative and vague. Muhly always wanted to set the Beatitudes and Craig paraphrased them beautifully here; the tenors intone the word ?blessed? over and over while the strings and winds reiterate the passacaglia from the opening of the piece. The fifth and final part is a series of proverbs. The Orchestra begins in a series of loose ecstatic drones which increase in intensity (?Make your own family!?) until you jump suddenly to the garden of Gethsemane where Christ was betrayed while his disciples slept. ?Why are you sleeping? Couldn?t you stay awake for one more hour?? he asks while the strings and winds lazily chant in the background.Luminous Body was premiered by The St. Paul Chamber Orchestra and Cantus.

Baritone Voice-Four Traditional Songs is a setting of four heartbreaking and poignant folk songs by virtuoso contemporary composer Nico Muhly. Composed in 2011 the songs deal with themes of death murder and unimaginable events that are emotively arranged for Baritone Voice and Piano. Commissioned by Carnegie Hall in New York City and Wigmore Hall in London this work was first performed at those renowned venues in 2011 and 2012 respectively. Muhly states that he drew inspiration from old English folksongs and would spend time imagining stylised yet subtle musical settings with accompaniments. The result of this intensive periodof listening is Four Traditional Songs which lasts around 15 minutes and carries that incredible sense of sad balladry that counters the occasionally jaunty melodies. This edition is for Baritone Voice. Please click  here to purchase the Countertenor version .

Nico Muhly's Old Bones is a setting of four texts three of which are the media's reaction to the discovery of the bones of Richard III in a Leicester car park the fourth is a poem in praise of the man who supposedly killed the king. Arranged for Countertenor Voice and Lute it was composed in 2013. According to Muhly Old Bones begins with a news report that is delivered as a recitative while the Lute parts go through a number of interesting patterns. The work sets two texts by Philippa Langley of the Richard III Society who in a series of interviews brought an emotion and passion to the rediscoveryof the bones that humanised the remains and brought the life and death of the king to the public's attention. It is therefore fitting that Old Bones ends with her words: 'Everyone else was looking at the old bones and I was seeing the man.'

Muhly fell in love with Byrd’s setting of the Christmas words Senex Puerum Portabat as a chorister so much that the ‘fluidity of the lines the relentless lilting rhythm and the way Byrd both avoided and cradled the text’ that he was inspired to follow a life in music. Early in his career he set the same text in modern style. The first statement of the words is a capella with ecstatic brass entering in the restatement. The ancient Hodie Christus Natus Est follows on seamlessly in a new mood.Contemporary American composer Nico Muhly is a prolific writer and arranger who at 32 is the youngest composer ever to have been commissioned by the Metropolitan Operain New York. His oeuvre includes two operas and many solo pieces and works for small ensemble Orchestra and Chorus and he has collaborated widely.

Muhly fell in love with Byrd’s setting of the Christmas words Senex Puerum Portabat as a chorister so much that the ‘fluidity of the lines the relentless lilting rhythm and the way Byrd both avoided and cradled the text’ that he was inspired to follow a life in music. Early in his career he set the same text in modern style. The first statement of the words is a capella with ecstatic brass entering in the restatement. The ancient Hodie Christus Natus Est follows on seamlessly in a new mood.Contemporary American composer Nico Muhly is a prolific writer and arranger who at 32 is the youngest composer ever to have been commissioned by the Metropolitan Operain New York. His oeuvre includes two operas and many solo pieces and works for small ensemble Orchestra and Chorus and he has collaborated widely.

Tv söngur is a composition for large ensemble written by Nico Muhly commissioned by the Los Angeles Philharmonic Orchestra. Tv söngur is a specific type of Icelandic two-part singing that can be found in texts as well as oral traditions Muhly?writes. Some of the tradition seems like much early music to stem from an exercise in voice-leading while some other examples are more social impromptu and secular. These arrangements attempt to frame the tradition through orchestration and wildly shifting contexts lighting effects and textures. The piece was composed in 2012 and lastsaround 5 Minutes.

Countertenor Voice-Four Traditional Songs is a setting of four heartbreaking and poignant folk songs by virtuoso contemporary composer Nico Muhly. Composed in 2011 the songs deal with themes of death murder and unimaginable events that are emotively arranged for Countertenor Voice and Piano. Commissioned by Carnegie Hall in New York City and Wigmore Hall in London this work was first performed at those renowned venues in 2011 and 2012 respectively. Muhly states that he drew inspiration from old English folksongs and would spend time imagining stylised yet subtle musical settings with accompaniments. The result of this intensiveperiod of listening is Four Traditional Songs which lasts around 15 minutes and carries that incredible sense of sad balladry that counters the occasionally jaunty melodies. This edition is for Countertenor Voice. Please click  here to purchase the Baritone version.

In Set Me As A Seal with words in English and Hebrew the Choral writing is as warm and freely harmonic as any mid-century English Choral literature while the sometimes jittery Piano accompaniment manifests Muhly’s Glass influences and his later movement into more modern motifs.Contemporary American composer Nico Muhly is a prolific writer and arranger who at 32 is the youngest composer ever to have been commissioned by the Metropolitan Opera in New York. His oeuvre includes two operas and many solo pieces and works for small ensemble Orchestra and Chorus and he has collaborated widely.

Spiral Mass is a work by Nico Muhly composed in 2014 commissioned by Holland Festival and BBC Radio 3. The work is arranged for SATB Chorus and Organ Accompaniment and lasts around 15 minutes. Spiral Mass received its world premiere on 2nd June 2014 during the Holland Festival by the Nederlands Kamerkoor conducted by Risto Joost featuring James McVinnie on Organ.  According to Muhly this compositions is an attempt to set the text of the Latin Mass using a completely different harmonic structure from his previous works. The rhythms and melodiescan be seen as circular rather than linear becoming evident from both the Organ parts and the choirs initial phrases. As the piece progresses the dynamic tempo enhances the interplay of all parts all the while hinting at Stravinskian inspirations. 

Big Time is a composition by Nico Muhly for String Quartet and Percussion (1 player). Commissioned by the Central Vermont Chamber Music Festival for their 20th anniversary in 2012 the performance lasts around 9 minutes. These are the Parts.

'Diacritical Marks was written for the Chiara Quartet in 2011 and is in eight short movements. I have a huge anxiety about string quartets; they are normally meant to be giant expressions of a composer’s emotional life. Here I focused on details: a tiny dot above a letter a tiny swivel of the bow. The first and last movements are energetic and driving and the middle movements are more lyrical rhapsodic and/or floating. The quartet is bound together by a piece of drone music found in movements 3 5 and 7 in which the second violin and the viola play an interlocking repeating pattern ad infinitum while the cello and first violin spin very long outrageous lines on top. The piece lasts just under 20 minutes.' —Nico Muhly

Written for cello harp and celeste.Clear Music (after John Taverner) was written at the request of the cellist Wendy Law during the summer of 2002. Clear Music is an extended exploration of a single measure in John Taverner’s (1490 1545) motet Mater Christi Sanctissima. What I attempted to do in Clear Music was to suspend this measure for as long as I could imagine in a single texture: the bright clarity of the celeste and harp. As in the Taverner I have structured Clear Music into a series of peaks featuring the highest registers of the treble voice—here the cello. I remember very vividly performing this piece and being struck by how distant the treble was fromthe other voices - sometimes there are spaces of over an octave between the treble and the alto - and I attempted to recreate the somewhat terrifying and exposed contours of these lines. The end result is I hope a prolonged and transparent recollection of the Taverner which exposes not only my appreciation for the music itself but also my response to performing it.Nico Muhly.