Candlefire

Next up for your enjoyment, my recording of Candlefire by Michael Nyman.

Yes, it is supposed to be that slow! Slower, actually. It should be one beat per second, but I like it a bit faster. With many Nyman pieces, I have to be very careful to go slow enough at the beginning because he will often double the tempo once or twice before the end. Not this time, though, so I can speed it up a bit.

Nyman is most well-known for his scores for the films of Peter Greenaway, but they had a falling-out. This song was written for a Japanese anime version of the Diary of Anne Frank, called Anne no Nikki.

The bass line is block seventh chords, one per beat, descending stepwise through the F minor scale. The melody is simple, but is made interesting by constantly switching between short notes (written as 4/4) and long notes (in 3/4). There isn't much emphasis on the downbeats, and the right hand often avoids the downbeat, so it doesn't feel like you are switching meters so much as just slowing-down and speeding up.