Max Richter

In a Landscape / The Blue Notebooks

Teatre Grec

July 15

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Classic technique and electronic technology. These are the cornerstones of Max Richter’s unique set of sounds, made up of solo creations and works for dance, theatre, art and cinema. His latest album reconciles opposites.

Germany’s Max Richter is one of the great composers of our time, with a style all his own that emerges at the intersection of classic technique and electronic technology. He likes to “reconcile polarities”, as he puts it, an unusual exercise in our day and age, and he applies this approach in a concept work that seeks a conversation between electronic instruments and acoustic instruments, between the natural world and the human world, between the great mysteries of life and our most intimate, personal questions.

Following projects in which the artist engaged with political and social issues such as the refugee crisis (music for the ballet Exiles) and took a stand against the 2003 invasion of Iraq (The Blue Notebooks; 2004), this summer 2022 album is about searching for balance amidst the peace of a rural studio. He embraces the pleasures of a quiet life and uses some of the sounds he encounters (perhaps footsteps in the forest or fried eggs sizzling), typical of his previous creations and music and poetry from other eras, to craft a musical reflection on the role of humans in our troubled world.

From a musical point of view, In a Landscape is a present-day revisiting of the sounds and art that have inspired Richter and his post-minimalist compositions, establishing him as a genius of contemporary sounds for some and practically a pop star for others. At the concert, themes from The Blue Notebooks will also be played, an album that has been reissued this year to mark its twentieth anniversary

This is the latest work from an composer who burst onto the scene with Memoryhouse (2002) and can create everything from personal compositions to film scores and music for artistic installations, plays or dance productions. After proving himself capable of reinventing Vivaldi’s violin concertos as a hypnotic experience and recording a nine-hour concept album based on the neuroscience of sleep (Sleep; 2015), Richter is now reconciling opposites in his Grec debut.

Produced by The Project.