Just back from the Usher Hall where we’d been to hear Michael Nyman playing a selction of his cinema music. He is certainly the world expert in extracting every ounce of value from any tune that enters his head. We should have seen the warning signs – we already have his The Piano Concerto / Where the Bee dances disc, which extracts every last drop from his music for The Piano.

Can’t say it was the most rivetting of evenings. Curiously, the sections that worked best were wehere Nyman played a piano accompaniment to some silent moves, most notably Jean Vigo’s A Propos de Nice. I’ve always had a weakness for surrealist cinema, and it’s good to be reminded that shaky handheld cameras and dodgy camera angles pre-date The Blair Witch Project by several decades…

And I do get annoyed at performers who use pre-recorded accompaniments in a ‘live’ performance.

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