Logo
DiS Needs You: Save our site »
  • Logo_home2
  • Records
  • In Depth
  • In Photos
  • Blog
  • Podcast
  • Search
  • Community
  • Records
  • In Depth
  • Blog
  • Community

THIS SITE HAS BEEN ARCHIVED AND CLOSED.

Please join the conversation over on our new forums »

If you really want to read this, try using The Internet Archive.

103045

Live Review

Max Richter Live at the Barbican
Max Richter Live at the Barbican
chrisshipman by Chris Shipman June 9th, 2016

Possibly the only gig this year where slankets are acceptable attire, tonight Max Richter brings his contemporary classical lullaby Sleep to the Barbican. Well, a portion of it anyway - the original work is eight hours in duration, intended as a nocturne to aid sleep. This evening the composer, a lone soprano and a five-piece chamber ensemble perform an hour and a half of extracts in front of an audience including Cerys Matthews and Jarvis Cocker.

Before the main event however, comes a performance in full of The Blue Notebooks, Max Richter’s cinematic 2004 album inspired by the events of the second Gulf War. Featuring layered sepulchral strings over sub-bass and samples of bird song and waves, the piece evokes all the confusion and pain of conflict. Seated on the right of the stage, an actress (taking the place of Tilda Swinton as per the recorded release) occasionally interjects in clipped tones with mournful extracts of novels by Franz Kafka and Czesław Miłosz. The concept in the hands of another composer could easily come across as self-indulgent and shallow; in Richter’s however, it’s an incredibly moving eulogy to loss.

The concert’s second half is unfortunately less successful. Make no mistake, Sleep is a gorgeous (and hugely ambitious) work, wound around fragile piano and string motifs, but in extracted form for the concert hall, it’s left disappointingly exposed. Premieres of the Arvo Pärt-esque work saw it performed in full (complete with beds instead of seats for the audience) and allowed it to unfurl itself within its original and intended context. While tonight’s performances on the parts of Richter’s ensemble are in themselves flawless, cutting the piece up merely allows its repeated simple melodies to frustrate rather than soothe. After the first 30 minutes in which the audience’s pulses and breathing relax as they bed into the music, the performance gradually comes up against brick walls as the themes and motifs cease in their development.

Proceedings aren’t helped by poor lighting - one minute pointed any which way but at the musicians; another, set to bombastic ‘Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?’ mode firing sharp shafts of blue all around the stage. Chief antagonist is a faulty bright orange spotlight slap-bang in the centre of the stage, which pulsates unrhythmically until the technical team decide to cut their losses and point it towards the ceiling instead.

As the light fades after the finale, a few members of the audience in the stalls rise from their seats to applaud, but unlike the composer’s previous performances here, the standing ovation fails to spark a unanimous response.

Both The Blue Notebooks and Sleep are wonderful pieces of art. Unfortunately, one translates more effectively in the concert hall than the other.

Photograph by Mike Terry.

![103045](http://dis.resized.images.s3.amazonaws.com/540x310/103045.jpeg)


LATEST


  • Why Music Journalism Matters in 2024


  • Drowned in Sound is back!


  • Drowned in Sound's 21 Favourite Albums of the Year: 2020


  • Drowned in Sound to return as a weekly newsletter


  • Lykke Li's Sadness Is A Blessing


  • Glastonbury 2019 preview playlist + ten alternative must sees

Share on
   
Love DiS? Become a Patron of the site here »


Left-arrow

Manic On The Streets of Swansea: Ever...

Mobback
103042
103046

“Guitar music’s become a fucking muse...

Mobforward
Right-arrow


LATEST

    news


    Why Music Journalism Matters in 2024

  • 106145
  • news


    Drowned in Sound is back!

  • 106143

    news


    Drowned in Sound's 21 Favourite Albums of the Y...

  • 106141
  • news


    Drowned in Sound to return as a weekly newsletter

  • 106139

    Playlist


    Lykke Li's Sadness Is A Blessing

  • 106138
  • Festival Preview


    Glastonbury 2019 preview playlist + ten alterna...

  • 106137

    Interview


    A Different Kind Of Weird: dEUS on The Ideal Crash

  • 106136
  • Festival Review


    Way Out East: DiS Does Sharpe Festival 2019

  • 106135
MORE


    news


    The Neptune Music Prize 2016 - Vote Now

  • 103918
  • Takeover


    The Winner Takes It All

  • 50972

    Takeover


    10 Things To Not Expect Your Record Producer To...

  • 93724
  • review


    The Mars Volta - Deloused In The Comatorium

  • 4317

    review


    Sonic Youth - Nurse

  • 6044
  • feature


    New Emo Goth Danger? My Chemical Romance confro...

  • 89578

    feature


    DiS meets Justice

  • 27270
  • news


    Our Independent music filled alternative to New...

  • 104374
MORE
Drowned in Sound
  • DROWNED IN SOUND
  • HOME
  • SITE MAP
  • NEWS
  • IN DEPTH
  • IN PHOTOS
  • RECORDS
  • RECOMMENDED RECORDS
  • ALBUMS OF THE YEAR
  • FESTIVAL COVERAGE
  • COMMUNITY
  • MUSIC FORUM
  • SOCIAL BOARD
  • REPORT ERRORS
  • CONTACT US
  • JOIN OUR MAILING LIST
  • FOLLOW DiS
  • GOOGLE+
  • FACEBOOK
  • TWITTER
  • SHUFFLER
  • TUMBLR
  • YOUTUBE
  • RSS FEED
  • RSS EMAIL SUBSCRIBE
  • MISC
  • TERM OF USE
  • PRIVACY
  • ADVERTISING
  • OUR WIKIPEDIA
© 2000-2025 DROWNED IN SOUND