Max Richter at Royal Festival Hall

The Royal Festival Hall is full and bustling in anticipation of contemporary classical composer Max Richter’s showcase of his 2024 album, In a Landscape. The lights dim and the huge space suddenly becomes intimate, as five-string players and Richter enter the stage. He addresses the audience informally, and it is refreshing to feel immediately connected to the performer we are about to watch. “This album aims to find harmony in an increasingly polarised world”, her explains, before sitting at the keyboard for They Will Shade Us with Their Wings.

The tracks have a melting, mesmeric quality, their tempo and colour only subtly shifting. 30-second Life Studies punctuate each piece, which are echoing, electronic sounds from real life: bird song, footsteps and distant chatter. The effect is cinematic, reflecting Richter’s success in composing for screen. The live instruments soar in at the end of these interludes, providing an emotive response to the bustling, random texture of existence. The string quintet play with unwavering communicative intent; first violin Eloisa-Fleur Thom has an achingly pure sound, enriched with expressive vibrato.

The effect of the opening half is transportive, enhanced by a strip of hazy orange-yellow light, which forms a kind of glowing heavenly portal. Richter’s new album hearkens back to his early meditative minimalist style and creates an enforced stillness in the listener, which risks tipping into disengagement. Nevertheless, the final piece of the album showcases all players together and is a powerful climax, with the double cello adding an orchestral richness to the chamber sound.

After the interval is The Blue Notebooks, composed in 2003 as a protest against the Iraq war. In the original, Tilda Swinton read Kafka texts set over the music, and suddenly, here she is in the flesh, reading tonight. It is an exciting surprise, and adds a refreshing multimedia tone shift to the evening. There is an agitated, uneasy tone to the second half, but it is similarly transportive. Swinton’s unearthly presence suits the effect exactly.

In the encore, another surprise guest appears as singer-songwriter Celeste joins the ensemble for The Bitter Earth/On the Nature of Daylight, a mashup originally conceived for Martin Scorsese’s Shutter Island and played live for the first time ever this evening. Her voice is raw, and brings a harsh intensity which contrasts and compliments the instrumentalists.

While the same effect could have been achieved in a shorter evening, Richter carries an integrity as a composer and performer that has the audience on their feet. In a Landscape is a contemplative, intriguing and beautiful addition to Richter’s repertoire.

Ellen Wilkinson
Photos: Pete Woodhead

 

For further information and future events visit Max Richter’s website here.

Watch the video for Movement, Before All Flowers here: