The work was jointly commissioned by Radio France, the Barbican Centre, the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra, Carnegie Hall, and the Finnish Broadcasting Company.
Mere whispers grow into roar; an intimate line of the solo clarinet becomes a slowly breathing broad melody of tutti strings at the end of the 18-minute arch of Nyx.
He continued:I set myself a particular challenge when starting the composition process, something I hadn't done earlier: to write complex counterpoint for almost one hundred musicians playing tutti at full throttle without losing clarity of the different layers and lines; something that Strauss and Mahler so perfectly mastered.
"[3] Arnold Whittall of Gramophone similarly lauded, "Nyx is a Greek goddess associated with night and Salonen's music is at its best when searching for a nocturnal atmosphere that is not simply drifting nebulously but moving forwards with a dream-like sense of menace and mystery.
"[5] David Allen of The New York Times remarked, "Arguably, it's most evocative when most tender, as with the delicate flutters given to the piece's protagonist, the principal clarinet ..., or in the way the thick string textures dissolve toward the end, as if awaking from a dream.
"[6] Joshua Kosman of the San Francisco Chronicle praised Nyx as "far more than the sum of its influences" and called it "a rich and dazzling musical invention, a riotous showcase of ideas that unfolds in vivid and surprising ways".