Considering the international success of Jane Campion's film The Piano and the healthy number of copies its soundtrack album (Virgin, 8/94) has sold, it seems quite logical that Nyman should adapt his celebrated score into a concert piece. Liberated from the necessary restrictions and demands of the film's narrative, this ''reconsideration of the film soundtrack'', as Nyman describes it, has allowed the composer to build the numerous, often brief cues that make the original album a little dissatisfying into a far more cohesive structure. He has also used a much larger orchestra than would have been appropriate in the film, with the piano part not only elaborately refashioned but also conceived as a member of the orchestra rather than a spotlit star (a point recognized by the tight, well-balanced recording).
Though performed uninterrupted, the 32-minute concerto is divided into four clear-cut sections and more or less follows the presentation of the music as heard on the Virgin album. The Scottish folk-songs on which much of the score is based (the haunting main theme, for example, entitled ''The heart asks pleasure first'' on the soundtrack disc, derives from Bonny winter's noo awa) imbue the piece with a yearning, heartfelt quality not usually associated with this composer. Indeed, the whole concerto, as so convincingly advocated by Kathryn Stott and the RLPO, throbs with an unbridled romantic fervency (the second movement and the end of the third almost Rozsa-like in their ardour) that may come as something of a shock to hardened Nymanites or those who appreciate the less grandiose scoring for the film. As for me, I loved every minute of it!
More recognizably Nymanesque is MGV, a sort of Pacific 231 for the 1990s, composed for the inauguration of the TGV North-European line in France. Here the composer's abstract style is eminently suited to describing a non-stop, imaginary railway journey through five regions between Paris and Lille; his repeated phrases and chugging, insistently propulsive rhythms create an effect that is totally spellbinding, with the strings adding an especially effective sense of speed and visual sweep. A rewarding disc that will appeal to Nyman fans old and new.'