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Rich orchestral textures, vibrant performances, and political engagement on Max Richter's Exiles / Planet Hugill

Max Richter revels in this exploration of large-scale orchestral textures in tandem with vibrant performances from Järvi and his young orchestra

Robert Hugill writes.....Composer Max Richter's latest disc Exiles on Deutsche Grammophon is a collaboration with the Baltic Sea Philharmonic and conductor Kristjan Järvi. Six of Richter's works, some new and some old, all in versions created for the ensemble that brings together musicians from Denmark, Estonia, Finland, Germany, Latvia, Lithuania, Norway, Poland, Russia and Sweden. Many of the works come originally from larger scale theatre pieces; Exiles is the score for the ballet Singulière Odyssée, Flowers of Herself from Woolf Works, On the Nature of Daylight from The Blue Notebooks, The Haunted Ocean from Waltz with Bashir, Infra 5 from Infra, Sunlight from Songs from Before.

Many of the pieces have a degree of political engagement with inspirations varying from the migration crisis arising out of the Arab Spring to the war in Lebanon and terrorist attacks in London. This selection is deliberate; Richter felt that the music's sesne of engagement suited the ethos of the orchestra, bringing together young musicians from countries that were formerly on both sides of the Iron Curtain.

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