Max Richter - Sleep / from Sleep

[purlieu]

 

MAX RICHTER RELEASES EIGHT-HOUR OVERNIGHT PIECE, SLEEP

One of Britain’s leading contemporary composers has written what is thought to be the longest single piece of classical music ever to be recorded. SLEEP is eight hours long – and is actually and genuinely intended to send the listener to sleep. “It’s an eight-hour lullaby,” says its composer, Max Richter.

The landmark work is scored for piano, strings, electronics and vocals – but no words. “It’s my personal lullaby for a frenetic world,” he says. “A manifesto for a slower pace of existence.”

SLEEP will receive its world premiere this September in Berlin, in a concert performance lasting from 12 midnight to 8am at which the audience will be given beds instead of seats and programmes. The eight-hour version will be available as a digital album, and for those who prefer it, a one-hour adaptation of the work – from SLEEP – will be released on CD, vinyl, download, and streaming formats, all through Deutsche Grammophon, on 4 September.

“You could say that the short one is meant to be listened to and the long one is meant to be heard while sleeping,” says Richter, who describes the one-hour version as “a series of windows opening into the big piece”.

Richter does not expect anyone to sit down and listen to SLEEP in its entirety, although some surely will. “It’s really an experiment to try and understand how we experience music in different states of consciousness.” He says he came up with the idea because of a long-standing fascination: “Sleeping is one of the most important things we all do,” he says. “We spend a third of our lives asleep and it’s always been one of my favourite things, ever since I was a child.”

Coinciding as it does with the renewed interest in durational works within the fine art community, Richter says: “This isn’t something new in music, it goes back to Cage, Terry Riley, and LaMonte Young, and it’s coming around again partly as a reaction to our speeded-up lives – we are all in need of a pause button.”

Richter adds, “I’m perpetually curious about performance conventions in classical music, our rigid rules that dictate how and what music we can appreciate. Somehow in Europe over the last century, as complexity and inaccessibility in music became equated with intelligence and the avant-garde, we lost something along the way. Modernism gave us so many stunning works but we also lost our lullabies. We lost a shared communion in sound. Audiences have dwindled. All my pieces over the last few years have been exploring this, as does SLEEP. It’s a very deliberate political statement for me.”

CD / double LP tracklist:

1. Dream 3 (in the midst of my life) 10:04

2. Path 5 (delta) 11:14

3. Space 11 (invisible pages over) 5:16

4. Dream 13 (minus even) 8:53

5. Space 21 (petrichor) 4:48

6. Path 19 (yet frailest) 7:51

7. Dream 8 (late and soon) 11:53

 

http://www.deutschegrammophon.com/gb/artist/richter/

[purlieu]

I have no idea what's going on with the quote there but I can't fix it. The whole press release should be in a quote.

[encym]

 

 

MAX RICHTER RELEASES EIGHT-HOUR OVERNIGHT PIECE, SLEEP

One of Britain’s leading contemporary composers has written what is thought to be the longest single piece of classical music ever to be recorded. SLEEP is eight hours long – and is actually and genuinely intended to send the listener to sleep. “It’s an eight-hour lullaby,” says its composer, Max Richter.

The landmark work is scored for piano, strings, electronics and vocals – but no words. “It’s my personal lullaby for a frenetic world,” he says. “A manifesto for a slower pace of existence.”

SLEEP will receive its world premiere this September in Berlin, in a concert performance lasting from 12 midnight to 8am at which the audience will be given beds instead of seats and programmes. The eight-hour version will be available as a digital album, and for those who prefer it, a one-hour adaptation of the work – from SLEEP – will be released on CD, vinyl, download, and streaming formats, all through Deutsche Grammophon, on 4 September.

“You could say that the short one is meant to be listened to and the long one is meant to be heard while sleeping,” says Richter, who describes the one-hour version as “a series of windows opening into the big piece”.

Richter does not expect anyone to sit down and listen to SLEEP in its entirety, although some surely will. “It’s really an experiment to try and understand how we experience music in different states of consciousness.” He says he came up with the idea because of a long-standing fascination: “Sleeping is one of the most important things we all do,” he says. “We spend a third of our lives asleep and it’s always been one of my favourite things, ever since I was a child.”

Coinciding as it does with the renewed interest in durational works within the fine art community, Richter says: “This isn’t something new in music, it goes back to Cage, Terry Riley, and LaMonte Young, and it’s coming around again partly as a reaction to our speeded-up lives – we are all in need of a pause button.”

Richter adds, “I’m perpetually curious about performance conventions in classical music, our rigid rules that dictate how and what music we can appreciate. Somehow in Europe over the last century, as complexity and inaccessibility in music became equated with intelligence and the avant-garde, we lost something along the way. Modernism gave us so many stunning works but we also lost our lullabies. We lost a shared communion in sound. Audiences have dwindled. All my pieces over the last few years have been exploring this, as does SLEEP. It’s a very deliberate political statement for me.”

CD / double LP tracklist:

1. Dream 3 (in the midst of my life) 10:04

2. Path 5 (delta) 11:14

3. Space 11 (invisible pages over) 5:16

4. Dream 13 (minus even) 8:53

5. Space 21 (petrichor) 4:48

6. Path 19 (yet frailest) 7:51

7. Dream 8 (late and soon) 11:53

 

http://www.deutschegrammophon.com/gb/artist/richter/

 

 

Thanks for bringing this up.

 

His recent score for Woolf Works at the ENO was quite stunning.

[kirm]

Nice.. looking forward to this.. wish it was out before September though!

[Kavinsky]

great news, love max richter and the concept sounds very interesting.

[logboy]

like richter, and would buy more of the OST stuff, but i dislike the habit of hiding recycled stuff and other bits n pieces in there ... so ... don't usually risk it.

[kirm]

They played full 8 hour version on radio 3 at weekend and its on iplayer for a few more days

 

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b06db5tv

 

I listened to it last night.. its nice and did enjoy dropping off to sleep to it but dont really get the point of leaving it playing while you sleep.. I woke up early hours of morning & it was still going & had to turn it off.. might resume tonight and listen to last few hours though

 

You can buy full version on itunes but its a tad expensive (I know its 8 hrs long but still) might pick up From Sleep the edited cd length version though. Anyone else checked this out?

[kirm]

Actually guess £25 for 8 hours music is pretty reasonable..

 

https://itunes.apple.com/gb/album/sleep/id1017067859

 

its maybe just me, as even though is a really long one I still think of it as just one album so seemed expensive at first

[purlieu]

I have From Sleep, it's a lovely album. Certainly better to give a proper listen to than Sleep itself, which by its very nature has long stretches of repetition and little movement. I usually sleep to music, often leave a playlist of quiet droney ambient on all night, so I've tried it a few times. It's disorienting waking up and hearing a segment I've not heard before, though, so for me it doesn't quite work on either level. The CD is definitely my preferred version.

[kirm]

Thanks, yeah think I will just get CD length version.

[Kooch]

Yeah the cd version is the best, I've had insomnia this week and the 8 1/2 version has been helpful.....generally listening to music or TV makes me sleep better.