Performing this evening at The Royal Northern College of Music was German born, England raised Modern Classical and Ambient composer Max Richter. In tonight's sold out performance, he played with a string ensemble and soprano vocalist. The performance was divided into two sets, opening with his 2004 album "The Blue Notebooks", and closing with his most recent epic "from SLEEP".
THE BLUE NOTEBOOKS
Before launching into tonight's performance, Max Richter spoke to the crowd explaining that "The Blue Notebooks" features readings from Kafka's "The Blue Octavo Notebooks", and when he originally recorded the album it was a musical response to seeing media coverage of the Iraq War. On the original album, actress Tilda Swinton narrated, though another woman sat in a chair on stage and occassionally narrated in time to the music tonight. Compared to "from SLEEP", "The Blue Notebooks" leans further towards traditional orchestral music. Richter began the performance with his trademark minimalist piano arpeggios, drawing equally from Eno, Glass and Part. His ear for melody evokes a natural, and stirring beauty. He was backed up by his string ensemble who in some respects, stole the visual focus of the show. The strings would build in layers, coming in one by one adding swirling crescendos to the music, lead by Richter's wandering piano. "On the Nature of Daylight" in particular was incredibly moving highlight of this performance. Richter also added subtle electronics into the mix, with field recordings of wind and thunder as well as small atmospheric touches. Unfortunately there was a small technical issue in this performance, where a second synthesiser player could not produce any sound. Although the sound engineer ran on stage trying to fix it, the others carried on performing regardless, leading to only a small loss in the sound. Fortunately it did not impact very heavily on the performance, which managed to combine electronics and orchestral ambient music in a sublime way.
from SLEEP
In 2015, Max Richter released the epic 8 and a half hour long album "SLEEP", after studying the human body's psychological processes during sleep and composing music to compliment the human shutdown sequence. To coincide with this 8 disc behemoth, was a singular disc 70 minute journey, condensing the main melodic phrases down into new variations that also featured the string ensemble, as well as a female soprano vocalist.
Though tonight's performance only featured 3 unique compositions, hearing the subtle variations of "Dream", "Path" and "Sleep" was very exciting. Richter opened with the beautiful piano driven "Dream 3". The lengthy compositions of "from SLEEP" are far more minimalist and ambient than anything on the performance of "The Blue Notebooks" beforehand. However I found these compositions to be far more moving and beautiful. The compositions of "SLEEP" are written in cycles, made up of slow moving arpeggios. Though it is about 5 minutes into "Dream 3" before a violin even makes its presence, Richter's grand piano playing is so soothing and richly melodic that it is impossible to get bored. Of course when the strings did gently start to come in, the sheer emotion of the performance ratcheted up as a full body of sound began to envelop the RNCM concert hall.
With the second movement, "Path 5 (delta)", female soprano vocals were added, giving a very gothic and haunting tone. Through only a couple of repeated vocal phrases, the magnitude and emotion of the performance increased tenfold in what was the most stunning piece of the evening. "Space 11" saw Richter retreat into true ambient territory, with an extremely minimalist atmospheric hum that escalated in density through the use of subtle electronics. The ensemble then ran through the 3 pieces of music once again, adding subtle variations. Most notably, "Path 19" added a more stripped down piano melody to the mix, with the soprano vocals once again stunning the sold out crowd. The finale of "Dream 8" reprised the opening motif of "from SLEEP", but with much more involvment of the strings. This climaxed in a loud and epic crescendo that sent chills down my spine. The sheer richness of the music was overwhelming and intense. Though at times I tried closing my eyes during this music to take in the feels of the music, it would have been near impossible for anyone to feel sleepy through such a stunning performance. I left the concert feeling more awake than I had felt all day! 9/10.
May 21st 2016 @ RNCM, Manchester.
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