Nico Muhly: Refine

(Piano). A short variation on the "America the Beautiful" tune takes the original and does two processes to it: the first is a kind of shattering, where the melody is buried inside fast filigree. These are interrupted by two kinds of slow material: ecstatic chords, widely spaced and in a jagged, unstable rhythm, and a kind of rocking-song, in which the original tune is hidden in a repetitive lilt.