Max Richter - Symphony Hall, Birmingham 05 November 2024 (and other dates/venues as part of a 2024/25 world tour) ,

4☆☆☆☆. David Gray & Paul Gray.

“Doleful - yet captivating.”

O, such doleful – yet captivating - minimalism from Max Richter – perhaps a little spoiled by misjudgements in matters of balancing the acoustic with the electronic

In a Landscape (2022-24) Blue Books (2003)

This was a much anticipated – and very well attended – concert of new and not-so-new pieces of music by one of the world’s leading British composers, Max Richter.

Richter is something of a polymath: an electro-acoustic/acousmatic composer, yes, but also a fine pianist, producer, studio engineer, remixer and collaborator across art forms - eg. with poets, writers, performers, and in his music for film and television.

The influences on Richter’s sonic sound-world are easy to spot in this most insightful of concerts. Here, Bach - and the Baroque, in general - together with his classical training, met hand-in-glove with punk rock, ambient electronica and the earlier days of music technology.

Two multipart works were performed by Richter’s talented ensemble, consisting of five (then four solo) string players, with the composer seated at either the piano, or swivelling round to play one form-or-other of organ/synthesizer – including, if our ears don’t betray us – the glorious sound of the “Moog Synthesizer” so popular in the 1970’s and 80’s. There are also excerpts of digital recordings of sounds - including snippets of music (think we spotted at least some bits of Bach and Mozart), together with readings of excerpts of poetry, and contrasting ambient sounds from nature, the environment and the mechanical world.

Of the eclectic ensemble he chose for this concert, and of his artistic intentions, Richter himself says:

“It’s about finding a fruitful, harmonious relationship between these elements: electric and instrumental music, natural and electronic sound, the human and technological worlds. It also reflects both the landscape we inhabit and the one we carry within ourselves…….for me, [it] is about reconciling things that seem disparate or in opposition to one another……[of] looking for some kind of harmony, which, given the world we’re living in, is really something we could do with” (as quoted by Filippo L’astorin, editor of the online site “The UP Coming”).

In the first half of the concert we heard a new work - “In a Landscape” which, the composer told us before the start, was concerned with “reconciling polarities”, and, rather than being a work absorbed with world conflicts and important issues of human rights and migration, is more concerned with the inner life of the human being, and our connection to nature and the planet as a whole.

There are around nineteen individual movements which were clearly supposed to be performed as a whole, with no gaps for applause. However, this was a truly diverse and varied audience who were perhaps not used to the convention of reserving applause until the very end of a multipart composition. This insistence on applauding caused the overall intention and structure of “In a Landscape” to be lost. Also, for some strange reason, the volume of Richter’s organ(s) was – at most of the time - simply too loud, and frequently swamped the often-delicate sounds of the five string players, as well as the (mostly quiet) digital, audio material.

The performance of Richter’s 2003 multipart work “Blue Books” in the second half, had fragments of poetry by Franz Kafka read as recorded sound between each of its shortish movements. This was intended to be part-and-parcel of the digital mix. While the recitations (thankfully) prevented any applause between the movements, we – and all those around us – simply could not hear much of the poetry. Not only was the volume of the narrator too quiet, but the other sounds – be they acoustic or digital – were just too loud!

All of this is such a dreadful shame, but one can’t escape the fact there were major problems of balance and volume in the concert.

Having said that, this concert gave unique insights into a composer who is rapidly becoming one of the most prolific, polymath composers of our age – and with an audience that is truly - and most welcomingly - diverse. Also, one cannot help but love (and perhaps allow oneself to indulgently wallow) in what the New Yorker Magazine recently described as the “doleful minimalism of Max Richter.”

For a greater understanding of Max Richter & his music, you might find this weblink helpful: www.facebook.com/MaxRichterMusic

Performers

Eloisa Fleur Thom and Max Baillie violins

Connie Pharoah viola

Max Ruisi and Zara Hudson-Kozdoj cellos