{"id":68853,"date":"2020-08-13T11:37:02","date_gmt":"2020-08-13T15:37:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/?p=68853"},"modified":"2021-06-09T11:29:39","modified_gmt":"2021-06-09T15:29:39","slug":"profile-max-richter-the-pandemic-has-changed-all-our-thinking","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/2020\/08\/13\/profile-max-richter-the-pandemic-has-changed-all-our-thinking\/","title":{"rendered":"PROFILE | Max Richter: \u2018The Pandemic Has Changed All Our Thinking\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"

Max Richter mines the Universal Declaration of Human Rights of 1948 for inspiration in his reflective new album, Voices<\/em>.<\/h3>\n
\"Max
Max Richter mines the Universal Declaration of Human Rights of 1948 for inspiration in his reflective new album, Voices. (Photo: Mike Terry)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Together with Universal Music Canada<\/strong><\/h3>\n

P<\/span>recise historical accuracy wasn\u2019t Virginia Woolf\u2019s abiding concern when she famously declared that, \u201cOn or about December 1910, human character changed.\u201d In the same way of thinking, it\u2019s possible to claim the character of music changed on or about 1960 with the earliest performances of Krzysztof Penderecki\u2019s Threnody to the Victims of Hiroshima<\/em>. What began as an eight-minute-plus exercise in radical notation by a young Polish composer forced art music out of its non-committal closet. Classical couldn\u2019t put a chokehold on its outrage anymore.<\/p>\n

To gauge activism\u2019s progress with contemporary music some 60 years on, we need look no further than the recent release of Voices<\/em> by Max Richter. To date, the biggest hit in the German-born British composer\u2019s prolific 20-year career is Sleep<\/em>, all of eight hours long of sonorities to snooze by, streamed a gobsmacking billion times. It\u2019s now available as an app<\/a><\/span>.<\/p>\n

But \u2014 \u201cI\u2019m still not about to buy a yacht,\u201d he tells me via Zoom. Richter has bridged having a broad popular media presence \u2014 TV (HBO\u2019s My Brilliant Friend) and film (Martin Scorsese\u2019s Shutter Island<\/em>) \u2014 with a genuine acceptance by all the right critics in all the right places. (The Economist<\/em> says he\u2019s, \u201cthe architect of the post-minimalist electronic revolution at the borderlands of classical music.\u201d)<\/p>\n

\"Voices
Voices by Max Richter<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

I<\/span>t\u2019s yet another part of the success story that may have the most lasting impact: putting new bums in old seats. \u201cThe majority of listeners at Max Richter\u2019s concerts appear to be in their 20s and 30s, a group which is conspicuously absent at most classical concerts,\u201d says Daniel Hope, the thoughtful violin star who performs the composer\u2019s Recomposed by Max Richter: Vivaldi \u2014The Four Seasons<\/em>. A chart-topper in several dozen countries, the Vivaldi has been licensed for film, dance, architecture, and other art forms, more times than Hope says he can count. \u201cCertainly in the hundreds,\u201d he says. \u201cThis goes to show that Richter\u2019s music, and music like his, is not only timely but here to stay. What I like about the Vivaldi Recomposed<\/em> is that it preserves our heritage, treats it with respect, and yet opens it up to entirely new impulses, and let\u2019s face it, age groups.<\/p>\n

Of course, multiple composers (Palestrina, Gluck, Poulenc. George Crumb) have made non-confrontational music their m\u00e9tier. With Richter, non-confrontation is often the reason for the piece. \u201cI\u2019m interested in music which doesn\u2019t monopolize the listeners\u2019 consciousness in a sort of data domain. It sounds sort of contradictory,\u201d Richter says. \u201cI like a piece of music to have a sort of conversational space where a listener, when encountering the piece, can think about the music while it\u2019s happening. This minimal, reduced language (is) looking for an active listener.\u201d<\/p>\n

That an increasing number of reviews do buy into this sort of quasi-psychological methodology points directly to a sea change in our understanding of classical, its nature, value and role on a planet with a pandemic on its hands. But here\u2019s the real kicker. Richter\u2019s work likewise challenges pop on all its spectra at the time of pop\u2019s greatest fragmentation, indirection and diminishing centrality in our lives. Richter\u2019s core achievement is bridging minimalism \u2014 and all theory-heavy deep thinking it comes with \u2014 and an uncynical embrace of the \u201csimulation of old fashioned (quite flattened out, to be sure) Romanticism\u201d, as Canadian composer John Rea succinctly summarizes it for me.<\/p>\n

John Cage\u2019s pale shadow hovers over Threnody<\/em> (its original title, 8\u201937\u201d<\/em> referencing Cage\u2019s 4\u2019 33\u201d<\/em>.) For Richter, its soulfulness was pulled from British music\u2019s commonality that connects Henry Purcell to Ralph Vaughan Williams to Paul McCartney. \u201cBritain is very much a melting pot,\u201d he says. \u201cMusic cultures really do rub up against one another. Especially in that shared technological space that classical composers, pop and electronic artists operate in.\u201d<\/p>\n

Contemporary art music \u2014 read \u201catonal\u201d \u2014 has mostly distanced itself from musical melting pots. The avoidance of \u201cany unambiguous assertion of fact or feeling has traditionally granted music an exemption from direct political interrogation,\u201d observes Peter Tregear, critic, award-winning conductor and Ernst Krenek scholar.<\/p>\n

\u201cClassical music in the main has shied away,\u201d Richter went on, his tone measured. \u201c[It\u2019s] mostly been about music if you know what I mean \u2014 dots on paper. But you do get moments throughout classical history \u2014 and Penderecki\u2019s Threnody is a very good example \u2014 where you have a very direct response to a historical event. Beethoven\u2019s Fidelio<\/em> and Ninth Symphony<\/em> have an activist position. They are about somebody trying to figure out how people should be with one another in the world. I think it\u2019s a legitimate thing for music to do, a natural thing for creativity to do. There\u2019s the music of the counter-culture: Woody Guthrie, Bob Dylan, punk rock, all different ways where music talks about society and how it could be. But I think there\u2019s another way which has to do with its role in society. There\u2019s a kind of activist position in Voices<\/em> and in pretty much everything I\u2019ve done. I think of music as being a place to think and reflect on the world around us.\u201d<\/p>\n