Listening to good music fills me with self-doubt, mainly because I often listen to music that friends and critics tell me is good, and feel … nothing. There are stretches of time where I’m afraid I will never discover anything new to me that I actively like. But then I’ll hear something that totally snaps me out of that unfeeling limbo, and it reminds me that I was just waiting for something that really spoke to me.
Michael Nyman’s Eye for Optical Theory is one such piece. Or, more specifically, the version arranged for the 2008 biographical documentary / caper-thriller-pesudo heist movie Man on Wire. For some reason, I owned the DVD, and the first time I watched it — at around 3 am on a summer morning in 2010 — I rewound and rewatched the portion using the Nyman at least three times, because the music was so good. It woke up my parents; they were not happy. I did not care.
Like Philip Glass, Julius Eastman, or Éliane Radigue, Michael Nyman has often been lumped into the “minimalist” group. You know the vibe: a sometimes regulated compositional process, lots of repeated phrases, a drone or two. Because of this, the music — and by extension, its composers — sometimes get a bad rap for making simple, unsophisticated, far too accessible music. Despite the fact that many of these composers are widely programmed, I have found myself in many situations with classical snobs priding themselves on appreciating complex, dense harmonies, and meandering expositions (it’s art that makes you really, think, you know?). It’s why Mahler is Messiah and Minimalism is Mephistopheles — if the upper echelons of classical fandom pride their precious music as a point of departure from pop, then it stands to reason that a method that, on its surface, isn’t totally unlike pop composition would be regarded as less than. One of the most refreshing moments of my media consumption, honestly, came during a Teju Cole interview when he said the quiet part out loud, trying to reveal why he felt he wasn’t supposed to like Philip Glass. “It is instantly there,” he explained. “It is too available, which raises a question about its sophistication.”
All of the questions about the legitimacy of minimalism are, honestly, dumb. Realizing that makes An Eye for Optical Theory an unabashed delight. You know why? Because it’s fun. It’s fun to hear this doofy piano barking out these grumbling chords, moving with the surprising speed and elegance of an African elephant. It’s fun to hear a chorus of all manner of saxophones, from earthy baritones grounding the harmony’s chords, to shrieking soprano guiding the melody. In a time where the saxophone is still the classical ensemble’s bastard brother, I appreciate it that this particular arrangement was basically like, “[profanity redacted] it, what if we add, like, six saxes and call it a day?
A recent conversation with a friend revealed one quality any song or piece of music needs to be “Truly, Very, Good”: imaginative potential. Basically, into how many situations could it fit as part of the soundtrack of your life? Eye passes this test with flying colors, providing vibrancy to the most mundane of activities: Lumbering down the street after a few too many beers, or gliding down after too few. It’s injected an urgent whimsy into many a neighborhood errand, and turned preparing dinner into an intense Bond-like side mission. I do not write movies, but every time I hear Eye for Optical Theory, I have entertained the idea of making a mockumentary about the lives of me and my closest friends, with the sole purpose of using this piece to color the scene when The Plan goes horribly awry. Do yourself a favor and go listen — and activate your imagination.
