Sep 30, 2024

Max Richter: In a Landscape (CD Review)

by Karl Nehring

They Will Shade Us With Their Wings; Life Study I; A Colour Field (Holocene); Life Study II; And Some Will Fall; Life Study III; The Poetry of Earth (Geophony); Life Study IV; Only Silent Words; Life Study V; Late and Soon;Life Study VI; Andante; Life Study VII; A time mirror (Biophony); Life Study VIII; Love Song (after JE); Life Study IX; Movement, Before All Flowers. Max Richter, electronics, piano, Hammond organ, electronic percussion; Eloisa-Fleur Thorn & Max Baillie, violins; Connie Pharoah, viola; Max Ruisi & Zara Hudson-Kazdaj, cellos; Martin Robertson & Paul Richards, bass clarinets; David Fuest, contrabass clarinet; Martin Williams & Graeme Blevins, tenor saxophones; Gemma Moore, baritone saxophone. Decca 587 5717 

 

In a Landscape is the ninth solo studio album by the German-born British composer and keyboard performer Max Richter (b. 1966). Our first review of a work by Richter appeared more than a decade ago, when Classical Candor’s founder John Puccio posted his review of Richter’s bold “recomposition” of Antonio Vivaldi’s Four Seasons (you can read John's review here). In 2022, Richter released another version of his Seasons recomposition, this time around one of the main differences being we have (other than Richter) musicians playing on gut strings and period instruments: the sort that Vivaldi would have heard and played in his own time. Also, this time around, Richter plays a vintage Moog analog synthesizer rather than the modern digital synth he had employed on the 2014 release (you can read our review here). Then a year later, we reviewed yet another recording of Richter’s Recomposed Four Seasons, this time performed not by Richter himself, but by the Los Angeles-based chamber ensemble Delirium Musicum. You can read our review of this delightful release, which also includes Philip Glass’s American Four Seasons, here.

 

Of course, there’s more to Max Richter’s music than his reimagining of Vivaldi’s greatest hit. One of his most highly publicized musical endeavors was Sleep, an 8-hour “lullaby for a frenetic world” to which listeners at the few liv performances were encouraged to bring cots, sleeping bags, blankets, etc. it is available as a 4-CD set, on an app, plus there is an abbreviated version, From Sleep, which is available on a soothing yet musically satisfying 1-hour CD (our review is available here). But Richter has not only been interested in making music to lull his listeners into states of quiet passivity; quite the opposite, in fact, as revealed by his releases Voices (reviewed here) and Voices 2 (to be found in this set of reviews) with their focus on human rights, plus his later Exiles, with its title composition inspired by a refugee crisis in Syria that involved many thousands of people fleeing for their lives under desperate circumstances (you can find that review here).

The music on In a Landscape is peaceful, introspective, but not somnolent. Richter says of the album that it is about “reconciling polarities, bringing together the electronic and the acoustic, the human and the natural world, the big questions of life and the quiet pleasures of living.” It’s 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 discover the fingerprint it has.”

 

He kept the creative process decidedly minimal, writing the notation by hand and restricting the arrangements to just a few instruments: string quintet, grand piano, Hammond organ and MiniMoog, plus tape delays, vocoders, and reverbs. As you can see from the header above, the program comprises 20 tracks: ten musical pieces, which range in duration from 8:33 to 2:16, alternating with nine “Life Studies,” brief ambient field recordings that add an aura of intimacy to the proceedings. Richter’s music is relatively simple in structure, but rich in emotional resonance, capable of engaging both the head and heart of the listener. What’s more, the recorded sound is rich and full. My only quibble is the lack of meaningful liner notes. Other than that, In a Landscape is a meditative masterpiece.

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Meet the Staff

Meet the Staff
John J. Puccio, Founder and Contributor

Understand, I'm just an everyday guy reacting to something I love. And I've been doing it for a very long time, my appreciation for classical music starting with the musical excerpts on the Big Jon and Sparkie radio show in the early Fifties and the purchase of my first recording, The 101 Strings Play the Classics, around 1956. In the late Sixties I began teaching high school English and Film Studies as well as becoming interested in hi-fi, my audio ambitions graduating me from a pair of AR-3 speakers to the Fulton J's recommended by The Stereophile's J. Gordon Holt. In the early Seventies, I began writing for a number of audio magazines, including Audio Excellence, Audio Forum, The Boston Audio Society Speaker, The American Record Guide, and from 1976 until 2008, The $ensible Sound, for which I served as Classical Music Editor.

Today, I'm retired from teaching and use a pair of bi-amped VMPS RM40s loudspeakers for my listening. In addition to writing for the Classical Candor blog, I served as the Movie Review Editor for the Web site Movie Metropolis (formerly DVDTown) from 1997-2013. Music and movies. Life couldn't be better.

Karl Nehring, Editor and Contributor

For more than 20 years I was the editor of The $ensible Sound magazine and a regular contributor to both its equipment and recordings review pages. I would not presume to present myself as some sort of expert on music, but I have a deep love for and appreciation of many types of music, "classical" especially, and have listened to thousands of recordings over the years, many of which still line the walls of my listening room (and occasionally spill onto the furniture and floor, much to the chagrin of my long-suffering wife). I have always taken the approach as a reviewer that what I am trying to do is simply to point out to readers that I have come across a recording that I have found of interest, a recording that I think they might appreciate my having pointed out to them. I suppose that sounds a bit simple-minded, but I know I appreciate reading reviews by others that do the same for me — point out recordings that they think I might enjoy.

For readers who might be wondering about what kind of system I am using to do my listening, I should probably point out that I do a LOT of music listening and employ a variety of means to do so in a variety of environments, as I would imagine many music lovers also do. Starting at the more grandiose end of the scale, the system in which I do my most serious listening comprises Marantz CD 6007 and Onkyo CD 7030 CD players, NAD C 658 streaming preamp/DAC, Legacy Audio PowerBloc2 amplifier, and a pair of Legacy Audio Focus SE loudspeakers. I occasionally do some listening through pair of Sennheiser 560S headphones. I miss the excellent ELS Studio sound system in our 2016 Acura RDX (now my wife's daily driver) on which I had ripped more than a hundred favorite CDs to the hard drive, so now when driving my 2022 Accord EX-L Hybrid I stream music from my phone through its adequate but not outstanding factory system. For more casual listening at home when I am not in my listening room, I often stream music through the phone into a Vizio soundbar system that has tolerably nice sound for such a diminutive physical presence. And finally, at the least grandiose end of the scale, I have an Ultimate Ears Wonderboom II Bluetooth speaker for those occasions where I am somewhere by myself without a sound system but in desperate need of a musical fix. I just can’t imagine life without music and I am humbly grateful for the technology that enables us to enjoy it in so many wonderful ways.

William (Bill) Heck, Webmaster and Contributor

Among my early childhood memories are those of listening to my mother playing records (some even 78 rpm ones!) of both classical music and jazz tunes. I suppose that her love of music was transmitted genetically, and my interest was sustained by years of playing in rock bands – until I realized that this was no way to make a living. The interest in classical music was rekindled in grad school when the university FM station serving as background music for studying happened to play the Brahms First Symphony. As the work came to an end, it struck me forcibly that this was the most beautiful thing I had ever heard, and from that point on, I never looked back. This revelation was to the detriment of my studies, as I subsequently spent way too much time simply listening, but music has remained a significant part of my life. These days, although I still can tell a trumpet from a bassoon and a quarter note from a treble clef, I have to admit that I remain a nonexpert. But I do love music in general and classical music in particular, and I enjoy sharing both information and opinions about it.

The audiophile bug bit about the same time that I returned to classical music. I’ve gone through plenty of equipment, brands from Audio Research to Yamaha, and the best of it has opened new audio insights. Along the way, I reviewed components, and occasionally recordings, for The $ensible Sound magazine. Most recently I’ve moved to my “ultimate system” consisting of a BlueSound Node streamer, an ancient Toshiba multi-format disk player serving as a CD transport, Legacy Wavelet II DAC/preamp/crossover, dual Legacy PowerBloc2 amps, and Legacy Signature SE speakers (biamped), all connected with decently made, no-frills cables. With the arrival of CD and higher resolution streaming, that is now the source for most of my listening.

Ryan Ross, Contributor

I started listening to and studying classical music in earnest nearly three decades ago. This interest grew naturally out of my training as a pianist. I am now a musicologist by profession, specializing in British and other symphonic music of the 19th and 20th centuries. My scholarly work has been published in major music journals, as well as in other outlets. Current research focuses include twentieth-century symphonic historiography, and the music of Jean Sibelius, Ralph Vaughan Williams, and Malcolm Arnold.

I am honored to contribute writings to Classical Candor. In an age where the classical recording industry is being subjected to such profound pressures and changes, it is more important than ever for those of us steeped in this cultural tradition to continue to foster its love and exposure. I hope that my readers can find value, no matter how modest, in what I offer here.


Bryan Geyer, Technical Analyst

I initially embraced classical music in 1954 when I mistuned my car radio and heard the Heifetz recording of Mendelssohn's Violin Concerto. That inspired me to board the new "hi-fi" DIY bandwagon. In 1957 I joined one of the pioneer semiconductor makers and spent the next 32 years marketing transistors and microcircuits to military contractors. Home audio DIY projects remained a personal passion until 1989 when we created our own new photography equipment company. I later (2012) revived my interest in two channel audio when we "downsized" our life and determined that mini-monitors + paired subwoofers were a great way to mate fine music with the space constraints of condo living.

Visitors that view my technical papers on this site may wonder why they appear here, rather than on a site that features audio equipment reviews. My reason is that I tried the latter, and prefer to publish for people who actually want to listen to music; not to equipment. My focus is in describing what's technically beneficial to assure that the sound of the system will accurately replicate the source input signal (i. e. exhibit high accuracy) without inordinate cost and complexity. Conversely, most of the audiophiles of today strive to achieve sound that's euphonic, i.e. be personally satisfying. In essence, audiophiles seek sound that's consistent with their desire; the music is simply a test signal.

Mission Statement

It is the goal of Classical Candor to promote the enjoyment of classical music. Other forms of music come and go--minuets, waltzes, ragtime, blues, jazz, bebop, country-western, rock-'n'-roll, heavy metal, rap, and the rest--but classical music has been around for hundreds of years and will continue to be around for hundreds more. It's no accident that every major city in the world has one or more symphony orchestras.

When I was young, I heard it said that only intellectuals could appreciate classical music, that it required dedicated concentration to appreciate. Nonsense. I'm no intellectual, and I've always loved classical music. Anyone who's ever seen and enjoyed Disney's Fantasia or a Looney Tunes cartoon playing Rossini's William Tell Overture or Liszt's Hungarian Rhapsody No. 2 can attest to the power and joy of classical music, and that's just about everybody.

So, if Classical Candor can expand one's awareness of classical music and bring more joy to one's life, more power to it. It's done its job. --John J. Puccio

Contact Information

Readers with polite, courteous, helpful letters may send them to classicalcandor@gmail.com

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"Their Master's Voice" by Michael Sowa

"Their Master's Voice" by Michael Sowa