Michael Nyman is God : Vol. 1 - Fish Beach

I can only presume that i came to know Michael Nyman in the same way that many people have; the beautiful scores to Peter Greenaway's films. Never have i experienced such perfect synthesis between the music and the action portrayed on screen. In "The Cook, the Thief, his Wife, and her Lover" (1989), one of the finest films ever made, the hesitant, and yet anticipant sounds of "Fish Beach" perfectly illustrate the tension between the two main protagonists, Georgina and Michael as they happen upon each other and then meet again in the corridor to the toilets on Greenaway's huge, formal "stage". It seems as if the music and the film are each on the edge of some momentous realisation. If "Fish Beach" in particular has any inherent theme in it, it seems to be creation, the title, one could assume, referring to fish emerging from the sea as in evolution. The pace of the song seems almost as if it is breathing, short inhalations and then long exhalations. The driving low string sounds after the first two repetitions of the theme, at 44 seconds in, are definitely what sets Michael Nyman apart from any other "minimalist" modern composer such as Philip Glass or Wim Mertens; a sense of dynamism, urgency and pace.