How do you
listen to music?
In general, I listen
at home on my big speakers. When in transit, iPhone with headphones. On the
road, via satellite radio tuned almost entirely to 90’s on 9. Radio 3 until once
they played Hindemith saxophone music and I had to take a month off.
What was the
last piece of music you bought?
Via iTunes, Tallis:
Ave, rosa sine spinis & Other Sacred Music, recorded by the Cardinall’s
Musick & Andrew Carwood.
What’s your
musical guilty pleasure?
No music should be
associated with guilt; it is all pure pleasure. (Real answer: The Indigo
Girls)
If you found
yourself with six months free to learn a new instrument, what would you
choose?
The oboe! Although one
gathers it takes somewhat longer than half a year to get past the painful parts.
Is applauding
between movements acceptable?
Sure, why not? Or
maybe you should be tried at The Hague for it. I don’t know. The press have
decided to invent some great crisis about applauding and I’m not entirely sure
why. You know what’s scary? Going to the jazzzzzz clubbbbb. I have no
idea what to do, when to applaud, how to grow my facial hair, when to stroke it
etc. Go bother them about elitism and audience participation for a few years and
let us get on with our work here, then let’s check in.
What single thing
would improve the format of the classical concert?
I’ve always thought
that in England particularly, it would be great to have a free programme,
particularly at the opera. It’s never struck me as being a £5 question to know
who that lovely tenor was, or, indeed, to remind me of the basic plot of
something fussy like La Forza del Destino. Even a simply printed thing would be,
I think, useful; it doesn’t need to be glossy or have commissioned essays.
What’s been your most
memorable live music experience as an audience member?
It hasn’t happened yet
in the concert hall — for me, the sublime is attained on a random Tuesday, at a
sparsely-attended evensong somewhere, with an Orlando Gibbons verse anthem being
sung almost perfectly.
What was the first
ever record you bought?
Lol, “record”. I think it would have been Different Trains, by Steve Reich, in 1992. It was a CD.
Do you enjoy musicals?
Do you have a favourite?
I have a particular
obsession with Sondheim. Into the Woods is a triumph in every way, and I live
for Merrily We Roll Along.
How many recordings of
the Goldberg Variations do you own? Do you have a favourite?
I own the world’s most
fantastic collection of Goldberg Variations played not on the keyboard. Violas
da gamba, reeds, accordions, harp, you name it. One of the things about Bach is
that once you start ignoring the performance practice crazy people, with their
orthodoxies and internecine cattiness, you realise that Bach works despite a
saxophone arrangement. That having been said, I put on Slow Late Gould when I am
feeling self-indulgent and Fast Early Gould in moments of controlled mania. If
Wendy Carlos got her act together and made a recording I would buy it in one
second.
Which conductor of
yester-year do you most wish you could have worked with?
I think I would have
to say Pierre Boulez, even though he is still, at the time of this writing,
quick. I’m obsessed by his Stravinsky recordings: how he teases out the
brittleness and brightness of the woodwinds. I have a recording of the Symphony
in Three Movements with Chicago that gives me chills to this day.
Which non-classical
musician would you love to work with?
James Blake. I keep on
telling English papers to tell him to call me and nobody is making it happen.
Also those boys from Disclosure. I’m leaving this in your hands now.
Imagine you’re
a festival director here in London with unlimited resources. What would you
programme - or commission - for your opening event?
Obviously Tom Adès
arrangements of Beyoncé’s entire catalogue - including Destiny’s Child-era
best-of. Then you get a huge orchestra together, fly Bey over, and get a graphic
designer to make a big deal about accents aigu and grave with
perhaps a commissioned sculpture and boudoir photographs. I’m shocked nobody has
done this already. Can you imagine his version of “Nasty put some clothes on
[gong] I told you [bell + muted trumpet] don’t walk out the house without your
clothes on [piccolo filigree]”?
What do you
sing in the shower?
See above.
Nico Muhly
performs his Twitchy Organs at the Union Chapel, London on 20 February, (details here);
the world premiere of his dramatic monologue Sentences is the Barbican, London,
on 6 June. (details here).
Follow him on twitter @nicomuhly
