Michael NYMAN
Wonderland
OST
VIRGIN CDVE942 (7243 8 48207
2 5)
[41:43]
Crotchet
Amazon
UK
Amazon
USA
Michael Nyman's musical approach typically relies on the listener being in
the appropriate mood, rather than prompting the listener with emotion. With
its trendy melodies trotted out across the composer's Procrustean bed,
"Wonderland" further demonstrates his system to proud effect. The underscore
provides an easy listening album for upstarts.
The candid look at three sisters during a weekend in London is suitable material
for this composer's method. The melodies catch one's ear; the main theme,
especially, and the highlight arrives when Nyman plays that pinchbeck romantic
tune on piano with the sort of smooth confidence one expects of a corporate
executive, and seals the deal with the flair of a used car salesman. A second
theme is either ingenious in its free and easy simplicity or laughable in
its suitability for soap opera. A questionable third again brings to mind
Ralph Vaughan Williams' famous advice to a twelve-tone composer: "If a tune
should ever occur to you, don't hesitate to write it down." The styles balance
each other.
The orchestral effects are challenging in unenlightening ways, however. What
irks is the string writing; again, the Michael Nyman Band players saw away
like confused woodsmen. This works interestingly in one populist cue, which
takes the secondary theme on piano and turns it into a dance for vibrasity
and tantara, but the rest tends to leave one feeling bamboozled for substance
without style. The arrangements are a bad shell game; we know where the ball
is at all times, but what Nyman is doing with the cups is still anyone's
guess.
Nyman's "Wonderland" is among his most commercial-sounding works, which is
not a bad thing. His music is surprisingly upbeat, and this time around merely
trifles with minimalism, the noun he popularized in music critiques. The
result is a score less monotonous than what I heard from him previously but
nevertheless strangely non-specific. I suppose it depends on one's mood.
Jeffrey Wheeler
