Located in the UK
Located in the USA
Located in Europe
- Nico Muhly
Radiant Music (2002)
- St. Rose Music Publishing (World)
Download the pre-recorded element HERE
Programme Note
Radiant Music was written for Alice K. Dade at her request for a short recital piece. The tape part is made up of several episodes of shimmering music for flutes, dulcimers organs, and sampled baroque strings, trumpet, and choir. This piece attempts to rework a series of chords that I have manipulated without cease for the last few years; this progression appears in the sequence that opens the piece. This sequence reappears in each episode as a harmonic goal for the flute, whose part circumnavigates it but never hits it exactly. Also at play in Radiant Music is a notion of fast music that moves slowly versus slow music that moves quickly. This is most evident in the "Throbbing” music which is very fast, but has an immensely slow harmonic motion, and in the conclusion, which is made of one chord reworked over a long stretch of time. Radiant Music is dedicated to Alice K. Dade, who knows the piece better than I do, and who spent countless hours working out the rhythms.