- Nico Muhly
Mixed Messages (2015)
- St. Rose Music Publishing (World)
Commissioned by The Philadelphia Orchestra
Percussion (4 players):
Crotales, Chimes, Glockenspiel, Xylophone, Bongos, Tenor Drum, Sleigh Bells, Guiro, Brake Drum, Triangle, Woodblock, Ratchet, Kick Drum, Bass Drum, Tam-tam
- 2+pic.2+ca.2+bcl.2+cbn/4.3.3.1/timp.4perc/hp.pf(cel)/str
- 11 min
Scores
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Reviews
The piece opens with fractured brassy fanfares countered by tremulous string ostinatos that slip into bursts of subdued, frenetic arpeggio-like figures. Contradictions keep happening: low rumbling strings bump against snarling brass; fitful phrases in one bastion of the orchestra blithely overlap cosmic sonorities in another. Mr. Muhly’s ear for dense, layered, post-tonal harmonies, a trademark of his style, served him well here. The urgency of the piece carries you along, even when unexpected things happen, like a curious episode for pleading, lyrical cellos.
17th May 2015
Mixed Messages is an eclectic post-Romantic/minimalist fusion, ushered in by whizzing string figurations pitched somewhere between Sibelius and John Adams