Acts of Beauty/Exit no Exit

Acts of Beauty • Exit no Exit

photograph by Michael Nyman
design by Russell Mills and Michael Webster

Studio album by Michael Nyman

Released

July 21, 2006 (UK)
May 27, 2008 (USA)

Recorded

2004 (Acts of Beauty)

Genre

art song, contemporary classical, chamber music, minimalism

Language

Italian
English

Label

MN Records

Producer

Michael Nyman

Michael Nyman chronology

Six Celan Songs • The Ballad of Kastriot Rexhepi
(2006)

Acts of Beauty • Exit no Exit
(2006)

Nyman Brass
(2006)

Professional ratings
Review scores
Source	Rating
The Guardian	^[1]
The Independent	^[2]
Sequenza 21	(mixed) ^[3]

Acts of Beauty • Exit no Exit is the 55th album by Michael Nyman, the eighth on his own label, and the third of these to consist entirely of previously unrecorded work. He does not perform on the album, but composed and produced it. Acts of Beauty is a song cycle with texts by various writers commenting on the nature of art and beauty. It is performed by Cristina Zavalloni and Sentieri Selvaggi, conducted by Carlo Boccadoro. Exit no Exit was originally a vocal work for John Motson called Beckham Crosses, Nyman Scores, in tribute to the English association football team. Here, the vocal part is rewritten for bass clarinet, and played by Andrew Sparling of the Michael Nyman Band with the Nyman Quartet: Gabrielle Lester, Catherine Thompson, Kate Musker, and Tony Hinnigan.

Acts of Beauty

Acts of Beauty features settings of material by Vincenzo Cartari, Kurt Schwitters, subject of Nyman's opera, Man and Boy: Dada, and Dziga Vertov, director of Man with a Movie Camera, a film he scored at the behest of the British Film Institute. "Marulla's Hobby" is about measuring erections.

Track listing

"Due figliuole di un contadino" – 8:42
"Halt, we are specialists" – 6:02
"We are at a film studio" – 6:24
"Life's chaos" – 3:21
"Marulla's hobby" – 1:41
"Exit No Exit 1" – 1:02
"Exit No Exit 2" – 1:10
"Exit No Exit 3" – 1:40
"Exit No Exit 4" – 1:34
"Exit No Exit 5" – 1:24
"Exit No Exit 6" – 2:07
"Exit No Exit 7" – 1:17
"Exit No Exit 8" – 1:28
"Exit No Exit 9" – 1:29
"Exit No Exit 10" – 10:35
"Exit No Exit 11" – 1:02

External links

MN Records official site

Michael Nyman

Michael Nyman Band - current members	Gabrielle Lester Catherine Thompson Kate Musker Tony Hinnigan David Roach Simon Haram Andrew Findon Nigel Barr Dave Lee Steve Sidwell Martin Elliott Sarah Leonard

Former members and others	Alexander Bălănescu John Harle Chris Laurence Ann Morfee Jonathan Carney Madeleine Mitchell Jamie Talbot Georgina Born Marjorie Dunn Beverley Davison Barry Guy John Greaves Andrew Shulman Michael Thompson Richard Watkins John Metcalfe Christian Forshaw Ute Lemper Marie Angel Hilary Summers Omar Ebrahim David Cunningham Molly Nyman

Nyman-produced albums	Decay Music 'The Masterwork' Award Winning Fish-Knife Michael Nyman The Draughtsman's Contract The Cold Room The Kiss and Other Movements A Zed & Two Noughts And Do They Do/Zoo Caprices The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat Drowning by Numbers La Traversée de Paris The Cook The Thief His Wife & Her Lover Out of the Ruins La Sept String Quartets 1–3 Prospero's Books The Michael Nyman Songbook The Hairdresser's Husband The Essential Michael Nyman Band Time Will Pronounce The Piano Michael Nyman for Yohji Yamamoto The Piano Concerto/MGV À la folie Live Noises, Sounds & Sweet Airs Carrington The Diary of Anne Frank After Extra Time The Ogre Enemy Zero Concertos Gattaca The Suit and the Photograph Strong on Oaks, Strong on the Causes of Oaks Practical Magic Ravenous Wonderland The Commissar Vanishes Nabbie's Love The End of the Affair The Claim String Quartets 2, 3 & 4/If & Why Facing Goya 24 Heures de la vie d'une femme Sangam: Michael Nyman Meets Indian Masters The Actors Man and Boy: Dada The Piano Sings The Libertine The Composer's Cut Series Vol. I: The Draughtsman's Contract The Composer's Cut Series Vol. II: Nyman/Greenaway Revisited The Composer's Cut Series Vol. III: The Piano Six Celan Songs • The Ballad of Kastriot Rexhepi Acts of Beauty • Exit no Exit Nyman Brass Love Counts Mozart 252 8 Lust Songs: I Sonetti Lussuriosi The Glare Acoustic Accordions Collections The Composer's Cut Series Vol. IV: Vertov Sounds

Albums to which Nyman contributed (as composer and/or performer)	Recent English Experimental Music The Pavilion of Dreams From The Kitchen Archives - New Music New York 1979 The Sensual World Saxophone Works John Harle's Saxophone Songbook Piano Circus The Contemporary Trumpet Taking a Line for a Second Walk Plus que Tango Visions First & Foremost An Eye for a Difference Pick It Up Meeting Point: The Saxophone Concertos of Nyman, Heath and Torke Twentieth-Century Blues: The Songs of Noel Coward Generation Sex The Golden Section Faces Ahn-Plugged Groovebox Moving On

Singles/EPs	Mozart/Webern The Heart Asks Pleasure First/The Promise Anohito no Waltz In Re Don Giovanni Enemy Zero Piano Sketches

Compilations	Michael Nyman Pure Moods The Very Best of Michael Nyman: Film Music 1980–2001 Man on Wire

Additional operas	Tristram Shandy Letters, Riddles and Writs Vital Statistics La Princesse de Milan

Unreleased film scores	Vertical Features Remake The Falls Brimstone and Treacle Ballet Mécanique Monsieur Hire Mesmer Katie and Orbie Titch Act Without Words I Man with a Movie Camera Nathalie... À propos de Nice A Cock and Bull Story

Major individual compositions	Memorial MGV

Les Disques du Crépuscule Minimalist music Systems music

References

↑ Andrew Clements (July 28, 2006). "CD: Nyman: Acts of Beauty; Exit No Exit | Music". London: The Guardian. Retrieved 2011-11-02.
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↑ Archived December 4, 2008 at the Wayback Machine

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