Nico Muhly

Nico Muhly Choral Collection

This exclusive collection brings together 12 of Nico Muhly's sacred works for mixed-voice choir. These vivacious, fresh and dramatic pieces will make an impact whether in the church or in the concert hall, and range from the intimate Lord, keep us modest when we claim to the effervescent Bright Star Carol, alongside service music such as Muhly's Third Service. All are accessible to learn, and offer choirs a new slant on contemporary choral music at its very best. Choral music has always been at the emotional core of my musical output. Even when I'm writing large-scale orchestral works (or, indeed, chamber music), I always find myself returning to techniques and textures I've greedily stolen from centuries of music from Tye to Howells, early and recent. I try to design my own choral music primarily for use in worship, where the measure of the successof the piece is if it helps guide the listeners' ears upwards and elsewhere, as sacred architecture and the various rituals of the church themselves are meant to do. The specificity of music heard only in certain seasons is, for me, an important and thrilling element of the choral tradition: a Beethoven Symphony is welcome at any point in the year, but an anthem for Candlemas works only then, at a certain time of day and on a certain day of the year. With this functional spirit at the heart of the compositional process, I hope that the music collected here makes equal sense in a concert setting. These works range from ordinaries of the mass to hymns to motets, and represent a decade and a half of output. - Nico Muhly