Songs for a Sunday: Max Richter
When I was tidying my desk (finally), I came across this name scribbled on the side of a piece of paper (along with the title of a story I never wrote). Often, as I listen to the radio (yes, the radio), I will jot down the names of songs or musicians I heard for future blogs.
This name didn’t seem familiar, so I did what we all do, plugged the name into our favorite search engine, Altavista* (kidding), and not much to my surprise, turns out he is a classically trained musician/composer.
Max Richter is a German-born British composer and pianist. He works within postminimalist and contemporary classical styles. Richter is classically trained, having graduated in composition from the University of Edinburgh, the Royal Academy of Music in London. He has composed scores for TV and movies such as The Last of Us, Miss Sloane and Ad Astra, and shows including Bridgerton, The Crown, Black Mirror, Peaky Blinders, and The Leftovers.
After hearing these first two pieces, I still wasn’t convinced those were why I had written his name down until I came across this next composition.
Many people are familiar with Vivaldi’s Four Seasons. There have been many different interpretations over the years, but Max decided to reimagine it by recomposing the work, taking out parts and repeating others.
Purists may turn up their noses at this (it is one of my favorites) but I think since Antonio was a bit of a rebel, he would have liked it. I’ve only included two short samples but the entire work is worth a listen.
Then I started going down a rabbit hole of looking for other string compositions which will be tomorrow’s post.
-Leon
*Remember this? You may of may not….
Leon Stevens is a multi-genre author, composer, guitarist, songwriter, and an artist, with a Bachelor of Music and Education. He published his first book of poetry, Lines by Leon: Poems, Prose, and Pictures in January 2020, followed by a book of original classical guitar compositions, Journeys, and a short story collection of science fiction/post-apocalyptic tales called The Knot at the End of the Rope and Other Short Stories. His newest publications are the novella trilogy, The View from Here, which is a continuation of one of his short stories, a new collection of poetry titled, A Wonder of Words, and his latest sci-fi mystery, Euphrates Vanished.
My new book page: http://books.linesbyleon.com/
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