Nico Muhly, the contemporary Manhattan composer responsible for, among other things, the choir-boy atmospheres on Grizzly Bear's Veckatimest, has had quite a prolific year. He's lent his orchestral arrangements to Jonsi's debut solo album Go and Sam Amidon's I See the Sign, and has released two full albums of his more traditional classical works.
Classical musicians who fraternize with the likes of lowly popular musicians are rarely recognized for serious compositional achievements. But Muhly has managed to straddle the two paradigms, largely through his own willingness to become fully absorbed in a given project. His compositions for indie acts are not forced; his arrangements spring naturally from sound and timbre of the artists. In the same way, Muhly's classical pieces find the young composer steeped in more religious European traditions. The brilliance of his music comes from his fusion of spirited American melodies with the choral church sounds he was raised with at his Episcopal church in Providence, Rhode Island.
Muhly's newest release,
A Good Understanding, is a fantastic collection of melodically moving choral works performed by the Los Angeles Master Chorale. The album is a must-hear for both serious and casual classical fans. Chopped church organs call forth Muhly's "Bright Mass With Canons" - a sweeping piece accentuated by discordant harmonies and the sharp, piercing explosions from the pipe organ. Later in the collection is "Senex Puerum Portabat," a slow and aching song that carries melodic traces of Johnny Greenwood's
There Will Be Blood soundtrack and Sufjan Stevens' trumpet work on
Michigan. Writes Muhly on his
blog, "The musical language of
Senex is, I hope, appropriate for church but also appropriate for private listening." It is this tension between the sacred and the profane, the spiritual restraint and sensual indulgence, that Muhly so expertly captures. The record is at once alien and familiar, the European immigrant and the free-spirited American youth.
I hear American singing
The varied carols I hear
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