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Programme Note

In Re Don Giovanni was the first deconstruction of another composer’s work that I ever undertook – 30 years ago, when I formed the Campiello (later Michael Nyman) Band. The first 16 bars of the ‘Catalogue Song’ from Don Giovanni were scrutinised and its four textural layers – continuous quaver pulse, bass line, violin line and Leporello’s vocal – were separated and re-presented in a cumulative fashion, B repeats, and then the piece ends.

Making the string arrangement is rather like the late Renaissance practice of taking a piece for ‘broken consort’ and making a version for the uniform sound of a consort of viols.

Michael Nyman, 2006