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Artist: Max Richter
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Max Richter:

In A Landscape

Max Richter is one of the most influential and acclaimed composers of all time. His fusion of classical technique and electronic technology, heard across genre-defining solo albums and countless scores for film, dance, art and fashion, has won him legions of fans around the world and blazed a trail for a generation of musicians.

His ninth solo album – the first to be written and recorded at his serene new studio in rural Oxfordshire – is a fleeting self-portrait of a musician in constant motion. In A Landscape is a record about “reconciling polarities,” as Richter puts it, bringing together the electronic and the acoustic, the human and the natural world, the big questions of life and the quiet pleasures of living.

The 19-track album began life in summer 2022 as a natural counterweight to the urgent political tenor of his previous projects: Exiles, a ballet score about the refugee crisis, and Voices, constructed with a “negative orchestra” and hundreds of readings of the Universal Declaration Of Human Rights. Richter’s ongoing commissions, meanwhile, were similarly dramatic and conceptual, including a ballet adaptation of Margaret Atwood’s post-apocalyptic MADDADDAM, music for a Mark Rothko retrospective, and scores for Johan Renck’s sci-fi drama Spaceman and the Elisabeth Moss spy thriller The Veil.

The next project called for a recalibration. Shifting focus to Richter’s immediate surroundings, In A Landscape marks out a psychic space in which to meditate on the present while recognising a lifetime of artistic influence, from Bach and Purcell to the poetry of Keats, Wordsworth and Anne Carson. “It’s me having a look around, trying to examine where I'm at,” he suggests, “like a memoir of the present moment.”

In A Landscape is his first solo album recorded at Studio Richter Mahr, the minimalist, eco-conscious creative retreat designed and operated by Richter and his wife, visual artist Yulia Mahr. “The whole building is like an instrument,” he says. “There's an element of exploring the capabilities of the building, how all the spaces sound, all the textures, and trying to dicover the fingerprint it has.”

Max Richter:

SLEEP - Tranquility Base

Max Richter presents SLEEP: Tranquility Base, a thirty-minute EP of new SLEEP music, released today on Deutsche Grammophon ahead of World Sleep Day on 17 March. Remixes will come from electronic musician Kelly Lee Owens and German sound artist Alva Noto. 

Richter returns to his celebrated eight-hour magnum opus SLEEP with this new EP which offers a glimpse into the original material from an electronic perspective. “Tranquility Base” is the site on the Moon where, in July 1969, humans landed and walked on a celestial body other than Earth for the first time. With this in mind, the EP functions as a vessel that disconnects and travels through the body of work, allowing art to provide something which resembles peace within ourselves.
Richter’s SLEEP app to date has had over 350K downloads and today the FOCUS section of the app has been updated. The update includes added music from SLEEP: Tranquility Base and music from across Richter’s repertoire. This is the first time material drawn from outside the SLEEP project has been included.

“SLEEP is a kind of counter argument to what’s going on in the world. Yulia and I have talked about it as protest music. It’s a sort of alternative proposition to how things could be or how things are… towards the world we’re living in and helps to shine a light on the things we can do better.

The original thing which made us want to make this piece was a sense of being oversaturated – with data, with information – overstimulated… All of that is just worse now, there’s more of the same – much more of the same – and that makes the piece continually relevant.” – Max Richter

Max Richter:

The New Four Seasons, Vivaldi Recomposed

A decade on from the release of his mesmerising Recomposed album, trailblazing composer Max Richter returns to the sound world of Vivaldi’s Four Seasons. Recorded with violinist Elena Urioste and the musicians of Chineke! Orchestra, The New Four Seasons sees Richter create a new version of his Recomposed score for period instruments – using gut strings and vintage synthesisers to create a “grittier, more punk rock sound”. The new album will be released by Deutsche Grammophon on 10 June 2022, preceded by taster tracks including ‘Spring 1’ which is out today (listen here: DG.lnk.to/recomposed). Richter and Chineke! will also perform Recomposed together live for the first time on Thursday 16 June in an exclusive UK summer show Live at Chelsea, with tickets on sale now.

Released in summer 2012, Richter’s genre-defining recomposition of a Baroque masterpiece topped the classical charts in 22 countries. Taking a work he had once loved but which he felt had lost its impact through overexposure, the composer embarked on what he has referred to as “a personal salvage mission” and wove Vivaldi’s musical DNA into something fresh and exciting. His global best-seller has amassed over 450 million streams including 110 million streams for ‘Spring 1’, as Richter’s overall career streams continue to grow to over 3 billion.

Recomposed continues to attract new listeners through its use in the soundtracks of hit TV series including Bridgerton and The Crown, which together saw streams for ‘Spring 1’ triple after the shows aired. It has also been featured in My Brilliant Friend, Chef’s Table, Orphan Black and The Current War. It is a frequent choice for concert repertoire in venues around the world, not to mention a favourite of dancers, ice skaters, actors, filmmakers, fashion designers and more. ‘Spring 1’ is a personal favourite of Olympic swimmer Adam Peaty, as well as Christine & The Queens who described it as “the best song ever to fall in love to” and Diddy who called it his “theme music”.

Max Richter:

Voyager - Essential Max Richter

Deutsche Grammophon will release VOYAGER: ESSENTIAL MAX RICHTER, the first ever collection of the acclaimed British composer’s work. The 33-track collection will be available as a double CD and e-album and contains work from across his vast catalogue, including studio albums such as 2004’s acclaimed The Blue Notebooks,  Richter; reviewed by Pitchfork as one of the most affecting and universal contemporary classical records in recent memory’, 2012’s Recomposed by Max Richter: Vivaldi - The Four Seasons, performed by award-winning British violinist Daniel Hope and Berlin’s renowned Konzerthaus Kammerorchester; and 2015’s ground-breaking, eight-and-a-half-hour magnum opus, Sleep. Two previously unreleased bonus tracks from Sleep are also included in this release.

Additionally, the anthology offers a selection from Richter’s numerous film and TV scores, among them 2014’s The Leftovers, which garnered the International Film Music Critics Award for Best Original Score For A Television Series; 2017’s Taboo, awarded an Emmy for Outstanding Music Composition For A Series; and last year’s Mary Queen Of Scots, which earned him the Hollywood Music in Media Award for Best Original Score - Feature Film.

VOYAGER contains music from 2010’s Infra, which originated as the celebrated score for Wayne McGregor’s ballet of the same name, performed at London’s Royal Opera House, as well as a version of In The Garden – originally featured on 2017’s Three Worlds: Music from Woolf Works, another ballet collaboration with McGregor – recorded at Spotify Studios in New York in 2017. Also included are Mercy, which was recorded live at Berlin’s Meistersaal by renowned American violinist Hilary Hahn, who first commissioned it for 2010’s Encores Project, and – an interpretation by Mari Samuelsen of November from Richter’s 2002 debut, Memoryhouse -  taken from her Mari album which was released earlier this year.  The collection contains liner notes by writer and critic Wyndham Wallace.

Max Richter:

Exiles

Today, prolific and pioneering composer Max Richter releases his 33-minute work Exiles on a brand new album of the same name on Deutsche Grammophon. The title piece features alongside expansive reimaginings of tracks composed by Richter for a Virginia Woolf-inspired ballet, Fendi fashion runways, Hollywood blockbusters, Golden Globe-winning documentaries, and a record loved by David Bowie.

Max Richter:

Beethoven - Opus 2020

Max Richter and Deutsche Grammophon are set to release a brand-new orchestral composition to mark the 250th anniversary of Beethoven's birthday. Beethoven – Opus 2020 was commissioned by the Beethoven-Haus Bonn, birthplace of the composer and now a museum, cultural institution and research centre. The British composer's new work will be available on all digital streaming platforms from 17 December, the day on which Beethoven was born. Its world premiere performance is scheduled to take place at the Beethoven-Haus on 16 December and will be streamed live on Deutsche Grammophon's Facebook page. Andante Loops, a piece for solo piano derived by Richter from his Opus 2020 score, meanwhile received its premiere on 11 December in Apple Music's Beethoven Room. The two works will be paired together on a digital EP, available from 18 December. 

Max Richter:

Vivaldi - The Four Seasons, Recomposed

Composer, musician, producer, remixer and collaborator extraordinaire, Max Richter has struck an exclusive new deal encompassing new works and collaborations, as well as future reissues on Deutsche Grammophon. To start, DG is releasing a new edition of Richter's highly acclaimed Vivaldi Recomposed, his unique reworking of The Four Seasons for violin, chamber orchestra and moog synthesizer. The new package will include remixes, and an exclusive performance film featuring Max Richter and violinist Daniel Hope shot in East Berlin in late 2013. There will also be five newly-composed electronic soundscapes, dubbed "shadows," by Richter, which were constructed for a live performance of the work.   The Remixes include Spring 1 – Max Richter Remix, Summer 3 – Robot Koch Remix, Autumn 3 – Fear of Tigers Remix and Winter 3 – NYPC Remix. 

Max Richter:

Sleep

Max Richter's SLEEP will receive its world premiere this September in Berlin, in a concert performance lasting from 12 midnight to 8am at which the audience will be given beds instead of seats and programmes. The eight-hour version will be available as a digital album, and for those who prefer it, a one-hour adaptation of the work – from SLEEP – will be released on CD, vinyl, download, and streaming formats, all through Deutsche Grammophon.

Max Richter:

Voices

Over a decade after its inception, ground-breaking composer Max Richter announces the release of VOICES – a major new recording project inspired by the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. The first single from his uplifting new work, which he describes as "a place to think and reflect", is out today via Decca Records. It is the latest album from the innovative, billion-streaming artist behind landmark 2015 composition SLEEP, which continues to evolve five years on with the launch of a new app. Available to download now, the app enables listeners to reimagine the 8-hour Deutsche Grammophon recording in custom-made musical sessions to help with focus, meditation and sleep. At the heart of both VOICES and SLEEP is a profound sense of global community, born out of Richter's career-long view of music as activism and his desire to unite audiences worldwide.

Max Richter:

Never Look Away OST

Max Richter's score for the 2018 drama Never Look Away is released on DG. The latest from director Florian Henckel von Donnersmarch (Lives of Others), Never Look Away is inspired by the life of artist Gerhard Richter through the story of an art student in post-war East Germany. The film was selected as the German entry for Best Foreign Language Film for the Academy Awards and stars Tom Schiling, Sebastian Koch and Paula Beer.

Max Richter:

Mary Queen of Scots OMPS

Composer Max Richter has written a compelling and dramatic score for the upcoming historical drama, Mary Queen of Scots.  Directed by Josie Rourke and starring Margot Robbie and Saoirse Ronan, the movie explores the turbulent life of the charismatic Mary Stuart and her attempt to overthrow her cousin, Elizabeth I, Queen of England. The lavish orchestral score features a full orchestra and eclectic vocal pieces.

Max Richter:

White Boy Rick OST

Max Richter wrote the score for White Boy Rick, the story of teenager Richard Wershe Jr., who became an undercover informant for the FBI during the 1980s and was ultimately arrested for drug-trafficking and sentenced to life in prison.  Directed by Yann Demange and starring Matthew McConaughey and Jennifer Jason Leigh, the film arrives in theaters September 14.

Max Richter:

The Blue Notebooks

DG releases a new, deluxe edition of Max Richter's The Blue Notebooks to celebrate its 15th anniversary with brand new artwork as well as new arrangements, remixes and a previously unreleased new track. Written in 2003, The Blue Notebooks was originally composed in protest to the 2003 invasion of Iraq and features readings by Tilda Swinton of selections from Kafka's The Blue Octavo Notebooks and Czeslaw Milosz's Hymn of the Pearl and Unattainable Earth.

Max Richter:

Hostiles

The latest film from director Scott Cooper (Crazy Heart), Hostiles stars Christian Bale as a legendary Army captain in 1892 who reluctantly agrees to escort a Cheyenne chief (Wes Studi) and his family through dangerous territory. The Hostiles soundtrack features music by composer Max Richter (The Leftovers, Sleep). Richter has received both Grammy and Emmy nominations for his work in film and television. Recent awards include The European Film Academy Award for Waltz with Bashir, the International Film Music Critics Award for The Leftovers, and a German Film Award and Australian Film Critics Award for Lore. 

Max Richter:

Three Worlds - Music from Woolf Works

Following the success of SLEEP, Max Richter reveals his latest recording project – a new album entitled - Three Worlds: Music from Woolf Works. It's drawn from his music to Wayne McGregor's award-winning Royal Ballet production Woolf Works – inspired by the works of Virginia Woolf – and will be released on Deutsche Grammophon on January 27, 2017. Woolf Works returns to the Royal Opera House in London, with performances beginning on January 21 and continuing on February 2,4,8,11,13 & 14. There will also be a worldwide cinema broadcast on February 8 with subsequent screenings.