Big My Secret – Music from the film The Piano – by Michael Nyman (with sheet music to download)

Michael Laurence Nyman, CBE (born 23 March 1944) is an English composer of minimalist music, pianist, librettist and musicologist, known for numerous film scores (many written during his lengthy collaboration with the filmmaker Peter Greenaway), and his multi-platinum soundtrack album to Jane Campion‘s The Piano. He has written a number of operas, including The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat; Letters, Riddles and Writs; Noises, Sounds & Sweet Airs; Facing Goya; Man and Boy: Dada; Love Counts; and Sparkie: Cage and Beyond. He has written six concerti, five string quartets, and many other chamber works, many for his Michael Nyman Band. He is also a performing pianist. Nyman prefers to write opera rather than other forms of music.

Nyman’s works

• 1963 – Introduction and Allegro Concertato for Wind Quartet (lost)
• 1963 – Divertimento for Flute, Oboe and Clarinet
• 1965 – Canzona for Flute
• 1974 – Bell Set No. 1 (multiple metal percussion)
• 1976 – 1–100 (4–6 pianos)
• 1976 – (First) Waltz in D (variable)
• 1976 – (Second) Waltz in F (variable)
• 1977 – In Re Don Giovanni (for the Michael Nyman Band) – arranged for string quartet (1991), string quintet (1997), and orchestra (2010)
• 1978 – The Otherwise Very Beautiful Blue Danube Waltz (for multiple pianos)
• 1979 – ‘The Masterwork’ Award Winning Fish-Knife (for the Michael Nyman Band)
• 1980 – A Neat Slice of Time (for choir)
• 1981 – Think Slow, Act Fast (for Hoketus) – reworked into soundtrack for A Sixth Part of the World in 2010
• 1981 – Five Orchestral Pieces for Opus Tree (band) (based on Anton Webern‘s Five Pieces for Orchestra, Op. 10)
• 1981 – M-Work (for the Michael Nyman Band)
• 1981 – Two Violins (for two amplified violins)
• 1982 – Four Saxes (Real Slow Drag) (for saxophone quartet)
• 1982 – A Handsom, Smooth, Sweet, Smart, Clear Stroke: Or Else Play Not At All (for orchestra)
• 1983 – Ballet Mécanique (for ensemble)
• 1983 – Time’s Up (for ensemble)
• 1983 – I’ll Stake My Cremona to a Jew’s Trump (for electric violin and viola, both players also simultaneously singing)
• 1983 – Love is Certainly, at Least Alphabetically Speaking (for soprano and ensemble)
• 1984 – The Abbess of Andouillets (for choir and percussion)
• 1985 – Nose-List Song (soprano and orchestra) [this and the above three works are from an unfinished opera setting of Laurence Sterne‘s The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman, which Nyman has repeatedly cited as his all-time favourite book
• 1985 – Childs Play (for 2 violins and harpsichord or ensemble)
• 1985 – String Quartet No. 1
• 1986 – Taking a Line for a Second Walk (for orchestra (Basic Black) or piano duet)
• 1986 – The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat (opera; libretto by Christopher Rawlence; adapted from the Oliver Sacks case study by Nyman, Rawlence, and Michael Morris)
• 1986 – And Do They Do (for the Michael Nyman Band)
• 1987 – Touch the Earth (for two sopranos, violin, and viola)
• 1987 – Vital Statistics (opera; libretto by Victoria Hardie) – withdrawn and revised into Facing Goya in 2000
• 1988 – Orpheus’ Daughter (opera; libretto by Gerrit Timmers) – withdrawn
• 1988 – String Quartet No. 2
• 1989 – Out of the Ruins (choir)
• 1989 – La Traversée de Paris (for the Michael Nyman Band, soprano, and choir)
• 1989 – The Fall of Icarus (for the Michael Nyman Band) – reworked into The Commissar Vanishes in 1999
• 1989 – L’Orgie Parisienne (for soprano or mezzo-soprano and ensemble) – originally part of La Traversée de Paris
• 1989 – La Sept (for the Michael Nyman Band)
• 1990 – Shaping the Curve (for soprano saxophone, string quartet or piano)
• 1990 – Six Celan Songs (for contralto and orchestra)
• 1990 – Polish Love Song (for soprano and piano or two clarinets, viola, cello and bass)
• 1990 – String Quartet No. 3
• 1991 – The Michael Nyman Songbook A collection of songs based on texts by Paul Celan, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, William Shakespeare, and Arthur Rimbaud and recorded with vocalist Ute Lemper.
• 1991 – Where the Bee Dances (soprano saxophone and orchestra)
• 1991 – Fluegelhorn and Piano
• 1992 – Time Will Pronounce (violin, cello, and piano)
• 1992 – For John Cage (brass ensemble)
• 1992 – Self-Laudatory Hymn of Inanna and Her Omnipotence (alto and string orchestra or countertenor and viol consort)
• 1992 – The Convertibility of Lute Strings (solo harpsichord)
• 1992 – Anne de Lucy Songs (soprano and piano)
• 1992 – Le Mari de la Coiffeuse (The Hairdresser’s Husband)
• 1992 – The Upside-Down Violin (orchestra/ensemble)
• 1993 – MGV: Musique à grande vitesse (band and orchestra)
• 1993 – The Piano Concerto (piano and orchestra)
• 1993 – Noises, Sounds & Sweet Airs (1993; opera-ballet setting William Shakespeare‘s The Tempest)
• 1993 – Yamamoto Perpetuo (violin solo)
• 1993 – Songs for Tony (saxophone quartet)
• 1994 – To Morrow (soprano or soprano saxophone, organ)
• 1994 – 3 Quartets (ensemble)
• 1994 – Concerto for Trombone (trombone, orchestra, and steel filing cabinets)
• 1995 – String Quartet No. 4
• 1995 – Tango for Tim (In memoriam Tim Suster) (harpsichord)
• 1995 – The Waltz Song (unison voices)
• 1995 – Viola and Piano
• 1995 – Grounded (mezzo-soprano, saxophones, violin, piano)
• 1995 – HRT [High Rise Terminal] (chamber ensemble)
• 1995 – Concerto for Harpsichord and Strings
• 1995 – Double Concerto for Saxophone and Cello (saxophone, cello, and orchestra)
• 1996 – After Extra Time (ensemble)
• 1996 – Enemy Zero (game music)
• 1996 – The Ogre
• 1997 – Enemy Zero – Original Soundtrack
• 1997 – Strong on Oaks, Strong on the Causes of Oaks (orchestra)
• 1997 – The Promise (piano)
• 1997 – Gattaca
• 1998 – Titch (worked on the main opening/closing piano theme).
• 1998 – Cycle of Disquietude (Coisas, Vozes, Lettras) (soprano, mezzo-soprano, and band)
• 1998 – Orfeu (band)
• 1998 – De Granada A La Luna (band)
• 1999 – The End of the Affair
• 1999 – Wonderland
• 2000 – Facing Goya (opera; libretto by Victoria Hardie)
• 2001 – a dance he little thinks of (orchestra)
• 2003 – Violin Concerto (violin and orchestra)
• 2003 – Man and Boy: Dada (opera; libretto by Michael Hastings)
• 2005 – Love Counts (opera; libretto by Michael Hastings)
• 2006 – gdm for Marimba and Orchestra (concerto)
• 2006 – Acts of Beauty’ (song cycle)
• 2007 – A Handshake in the Dark (choral piece with orchestra; text by Jamal Jumá [world premiere 8 March 2007, Barbican, London, performed by the BBC Symphony Chorus and Orchestra, John Storgards conducting])
• 2007 – Interlude in C (expansion of a theme from The Libertine for Accent07 touring ensemble)
• 2007 – Eight Lust Songs (song cycle)
• 2007 – Warwick Fanfare (Parts 1 & 2) (procession and recession fanfares used for graduation ceremonies at the University of Warwick)
• 2008 – Yamamoto Perpetuo for Solo Flute (arranged by Andy Findon)
• 2008 – Something Connected with Energy (ensemble) – reworked into soundtrack for The Eleventh Year in 2010
• 2009 – Sparkie: Cage and Beyond (opera with Carsten Nicolai)
• 2009 – The Musicologist Scores (for the Michael Nyman Band)
• 2010 – 2Graves
• 2010 – Body Parts Songs (song cycle)
• 2011 – Prologue to Dido and Aeneas by Henry Purcell (opera, libretto by Vera Pavlova)
• 2012 – Through the Only Window (piano quintet)
• 2013 – Trumpet & String Quartet
• 2014 – War Work: Eight Songs with Film (song cycle commissioned to commemorate the 100th anniversary of the First World War)
• 2016 – As You Watch The Athletes Score (for the Michael Nyman Band)
• 2016 – No Time In Eternity (countertenor and viol consort)

Nyman’s music re-used

• Nyman’s “The Heart Asks Pleasure First” (from The Piano) is the music on which Italian rock noir band Belladonna‘s song “Let There Be Light” is based. Released in December 2010, the track features Michael Nyman himself on piano.
• Nyman’s “The Heart Asks Pleasure First” (from The Piano) was used as backing music for one of the bank advertisements for Lloyds TSB broadcast on television. It has also been featured in episodes of 20/20.
• Music from Ravenous has been used at least once on WFYI‘s Across Indiana, in a segment titled “On the Trail of John Hunt Morgan“, produced by Scott Andrew Hutchins.
• Nyman’s soundtrack for Carrington is mostly based on his own String Quartet No. 3.
• A Cock and Bull Story contains music from The Draughtsman’s Contract, as well as Nyman’s arrangements of classical music used in Stanley Kubrick‘s Barry Lyndon. (It does not use any music from Nyman’s Tristram Shandy opera.)
• Nyman’s music for Peter Greenaway’s films has been used in the Japanese television program Iron Chef.
• Popular “Chasing Sheep is Best Left to Shepherds” (from The Draughtsman’s Contract) constituted the main theme of Spanish TV program Queremos Saber, presented by Mercedes Milà in the nineties. In 2013, it was sampled in the Pet Shop Boys single “Love Is a Bourgeois Construct“, produced by Stuart Price.
• Nyman features in ‘9 Songs‘ (Michael Winterbottom, 2004) playing at the Hackney Empire on his 60th birthday.
• Nyman’s MGV: Musique à grande vitesse was used in November 2006 for a new one-act ballet for the Royal Ballet in London, DGV (danse à grande vitesse) by Christopher Wheeldon.
• Nyman’s “The Heart Asks Pleasure First” was covered by the Finnish symphonic metal band Nightwish. Nyman had refused to release the song initially; the band was later granted permission and the song was released on 29 February 2012 as part of the single The Crow, the Owl and the Dove from their album Imaginaerum.
• Time Lapse was used in Sky’s 2008 ‘Heroes’ advert
• Selections from Nyman’s catalogue formed part of the soundtrack for James Marsh‘s 2008 documentary, Man on Wire, a film about Philippe Petit, a Frenchman, who in 1974 illegally strung a tightrope between the top of the WTC buildings and danced between them for 45 minutes, thus committing the “artistic crime of the 20th century”.
• Nyman’s piece “Car Crash” from A Zed & Two Noughts was used for once on the final episode of a Greek series called ‘To Kafe Tis Xaras’
• Nyman’s soundtrack for Wonderland has been used as part of the soundtrack for Juan Rodriguez-Briso’s 2014 documentary film, Eighteam based on the true story of the Zambian national football team and its journey from tragedy to glory.

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