Nicholas Maw

With its rich textures bubbling with activity, not unlike Janácek thrilling at nature's evergreen renewal, the piece seeks to put into music `the energy and beauty of spring'. It is an approachable ex...

It is written to please and does not put a foot wrong, as it dances energetically along to some singable themes, with invigorating rhythms, cast in a clear structure, and above all flourishing a maste...

Instrumentation: 2(II=afl+picc).2(II=ca).2.2.cbsn - 4331 - timp - perc(2): vib/SD/TD/BD/cyms/susp.cym/tam-t/c.bells/t.bells/tamb/whip/tgl - harp - strings

Sophie's Choice is an opera in four acts based upon the post-war dramatic novel by William Styron, and commissioned by BBC Radio 3 in association with the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden. The opera w...

‘Full of luminous harmonies, rich choral textures and fine, eminently singable lines. The music is compelling, accessible and distinctive.’ Gramophone (Marc Rochester), January 2000

Morning Hymn, Pastoral Hymn and Evening Hymn: Extending the British choral tradition in a challenging, yet approachable way, Nicholas Maw's potent settings are a thrilling sing for competent choirs.

... a lyrical and artful structure, full of contrasting texture and dynamic and typically rich harmony. The Times (Stephen Pettitt), March 1993

. . . a sequence of dances which make up a vigorous rhythmic romp, brilliantly written for the instruments. Edward Greenfield, The Guardian, 25th July 1991 Instrumentation: 3(II=afl.III=picc).3.Ebcl(=...

. . . a great many remarkable qualities. . . it contains numerous precise and beautiful images. Paul Griffiths, The Times, 22 September 1986

Nicholas Maw wrote these two cadenzas for Mozart’s Piano Concerto No. 24 in C minor, K.491 for the American pianist Sarah Rothenberg in 1991. They are reproduced here in Maw’s manuscript.

In these three characterful and testing piano studies, composed in the autumn of 1985, Nicholas Maw sought to bypass many of the characteristics of post-war piano writing and take up where the ‘old’ p...

In these three characterful and testing piano studies, composed in the autumn of 1985, Nicholas Maw sought to bypass many of the characteristics of post-war piano writing and take up where the ‘old’ p...

In these three characterful and testing piano studies, composed in the autumn of 1985, Nicholas Maw sought to bypass many of the characteristics of post-war piano writing and take up where the ‘old’ p...

. . . a genuinely atmospheric, highly allusive, tautly organized suite of dance references. Maw's titles and tempo indications suggest a fashionably vampiric nightmare, but the music sounded warm and...

Maw's harmonic eloquence and rhythmic fervour crystallize the initial agitation to become a flowing vocal line coloured by the writing for flute, viola and harp, the words borne aloft like a continuat...

Nicholas Maw’s The Head of Orpheus (1992) is a 6-minute setting of a poem by the American poet Robert Kelly for high voice and two clarinets. Written for Mary Wiegold and the Composers Ensemble,...

It has a lucidity and balance, a subtle refinement of substance and texture. . . it is a work that will no doubt quickly establish, or certainly ought to establish, a regular place in what is a surpri...

The work's title, 'Music of Memory', refers to the long-term memory of a golden age (and the corresponding hope that it can continue to nourish our own art) represented by the Mendelssohn; the short-t...

. . . succinct, effective character sketches whose coruscating arpeggios and great, crashing chordsdemand phenomenal technique and reward it with phenomenal music. Joseph McLellan, The Washington Post...

One of two highly effective and entertaining collections of nonsense rhymes set to music by Nicholas Maw. The texts are, in the main, traditional, but rhymes by Lear, Carroll and Durfey are also inclu...