''MGV'', or ''Musique à Grande Vitesse'' is a 1993

musical composition Musical composition can refer to an Originality, original piece or work of music, either Human voice, vocal or Musical instrument, instrumental, the musical form, structure of a musical piece or to the process of creating or writing a new pie ...

English English usually refers to: * English language * English people English may also refer to: Culture, language and peoples * ''English'', an adjective for something of, from, or related to England * ''English'', an Amish ter ...

composer A composer is a person who writes music. The term is especially used to indicate composers of Western classical music, or those who are composers by occupation. Many composers are, or were, also skilled performers of music. Etymology and def ...

Michael Nyman Michael Laurence Nyman, Order of the British Empire, CBE (born 23 March 1944) is an English composer, pianist, libretto, librettist, musicologist, and filmmaker. He is known for numerous film soundtrack, scores (many written during his lengthy ...

. Its title, which is French for "High-Speed Music", indicates its origin as a work commissioned by the Festival de

Lille Lille (, ; ; ; ; ) is a city in the northern part of France, within French Flanders. Positioned along the Deûle river, near France's border with Belgium, it is the capital of the Hauts-de-France Regions of France, region, the Prefectures in F ...

for the inauguration of the

TGV The TGV (; , , 'high-speed train') is France's intercity high-speed rail service. With commercial operating speeds of up to on the newer lines, the TGV was conceived at the same period as other technological projects such as the Ariane 1 rocke ...

LGV Nord The (), typically shortened to LGV Nord, is a French -long high-speed rail line, opened in 1993, that connects Paris to the Belgium–France border, Belgian border and the Channel Tunnel via Lille. With a maximum speed of , the line appreciably ...

line between

Paris Paris () is the Capital city, capital and List of communes in France with over 20,000 inhabitants, largest city of France. With an estimated population of 2,048,472 residents in January 2025 in an area of more than , Paris is the List of ci ...

and Lille. It was first performed by the

Michael Nyman Band The Michael Nyman Band, formerly known as the Campiello Band, is a group formed as a street band for a 1976 production of Carlo Goldoni's 1756 play, ''Il Campiello'' directed by Bill Bryden at the Old Vic. The band did not wish to break up aft ...

and the Orchestre national de Lille under

Jean-Claude Casadesus Jean-Claude Probst (born 7 December 1935), known professionally as Jean-Claude Casadesus, is a French Conducting, conductor. Biography Casadesus was born in Paris on 7 December 1935, the son of actress Gisèle Casadesus and her husband Lucien Pa ...

on 26 September 1993.

Background

From the programme note by the composer: "MGV runs continuously but was conceived as an abstract, imaginary journey; or rather five inter-connected journeys, each ending with a slow, mainly stepwise melody which is only heard in its 'genuine' form when the piece reaches its destination. The thematic 'transformation' is a key to MGV as a whole, where musical ideas- rhythmic, melodic, harmonic, motivic, textural - constantly change their identity as they pass through different musical 'environments'. For instance the opening bars establish both a recurrent rhythmic principle - 9, 11, or 13-beat rhythmic cycles heard against a regular 8 - and a harmonic process - chord sequences (mainly over C and E) which have the note E in common. (Coincidentally, MGV begins in C and ends in E). A later scalic, syncopated figure (again first heard over C, E and A) begins the second section, featuring brass, in D flat. And so on: the topography of MGV should be experienced without reference to planning, description or timetables. Tempo changes, unpredictable slowings down, bear no logical relation to the high speed of the Paris-Lille journey, while the temptation to treat MGV as a concerto grosso, with the Michael Nyman band as the ripieno, was resisted: more suitably the Band (amplified in live performance) lays down the tracks on which MGV runs."

Recording history and popular culture

''MGV'' was presented on '' The Piano Concerto/MGV'' by

Argo Records Argo Records was a record label in Chicago that was established in 1955 in music, 1955 as a division of Chess Records. Originally the label was called Marterry, but bandleader Ralph Marterie objected, and within a couple of months the imprint w ...

, released in 1994. This remains the only commercial recording. A rearranged excerpt from the start of "1st Region" was featured in an influential Sony Wega television ad campaign in 1995. The same movement is featured in the soundtrack to ''

The Last Black Man in San Francisco ''The Last Black Man in San Francisco'' is a 2019 American drama film directed and produced by Joe Talbot in his directorial debut. He wrote the screenplay with Rob Richert and the story with Jimmie Fails, on whose life it is partly based. It ...

'', the 2019 debut of director Joe Talbot.

References

Compositions by Michael Nyman 1994 compositions Works about rail transport TGV {{classical-composition-stub