Max Richter - Voices

A Closer Listen

Max Richter‘s Voices is the perfect album for this weekend, indeed for this time in human history: a heartfelt reflection on the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.  Today is the 4th of July in the United States, a day when Americans celebrate their freedom, independence and ideals.  How far have we drifted from the Founding Fathers’ original intent?  Have we made any progress?  Has the path been obscured?

The United States is currently engaged in a series of culture wars, many sparked or inflamed by its own president.  He-who-must-not-be-named is planning to celebrate this weekend with fireworks at a packed Mount Rushmore gathering – no social distancing required. Borders are being closed.  Civil rights are under attack.  In contrast, according to The New York Times, Black Lives Matter may be the largest social movement in history.

The contrast between our ideals and our reality has produced an unexpected reaction as I play Voices again and again.  I cry.  And I am not someone who normally cries.  So much for being an objective reviewer.  I cry out of frustration at the way things are, out of hope that things might change, out of anger that the nation I believe in is led by a person who seems intent on destroying everything beautiful and holy.  In the past few weeks, I’ve marched with thousands of people.  I’ve prayed.  I’ve tried to keep my anger in check and my despair at the door.

I cry because as I listen to Voices, I remember that I believe in this America, in this world, in this sense of shared humanity, in the capacity for human beings to change, to correct their course, to love.  There is no embedded commentary, simply people of different nationalities reading the text of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, augmented by the soprano voice of Grace Davidson, who also appeared on Sleep, A Closer Listen‘s Album of the Year in 2015.  Richter pulls out all the stops, adding “12 double basses, 24 cellos, 6 violas, 8 violins, a harp, a wordless 12-piece choir, violinist Mari Samuelsen and conductor Robert Ziegler.”  Yulia Mahr’s video for “All Human Beings” is gorgeously produced and contains evocative juxtapositions: swingsets and soldiers, oceans and apartments, black and white, old and young, Roosevelt’s spoken words and Davidson’s wordless song:

The authors of the Declaration were convened under the direction of Eleanor Roosevelt at the UN General Assembly in 1948, the aftermath of the Second World War.  The document was adopted two weeks before Christmas, and led to the International Bill of Human Rights.  In the aftermath of such widespread, shared suffering, humanity rose to its highest height.

I cry because such things are possible, and because Richter’s music makes me ache for my ideals.

Richter writes, “It is clear we all have some thinking to do at the moment. We live in a hugely challenging time and, looking around at the world we have made, it’s easy to feel hopeless or angry. But, just as the problems we face are of our own making, so their solutions are within our reach, and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights is something that offers us a way forward. Although it isn’t a perfect document, the declaration does represent an inspiring vision for the possibility of better and kinder world.”

We’re all going through the same things: isolation, quarantine, fear, anxiety, a horror at racism, sexism and political xenophobia.  Now, more than any other time in our lifetimes, we can see the potential for global empathy.  When a square in Amsterdam fills with protestors chanting “Black Lives Matter,” we realize that we truly are a global community.  The United Nations, despite its flaws, embodies this connection.

Everyone has the right to life, liberty, and the security of person. Everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression. Everyone has the right to education.

The words of the Declaration engage the mind; Richter’s music goes straight to the heart.  Together, they create an impact greater than the sum of its parts.  Voices has the potential to make the listener believe in humanity again.  It’s more than just an album; like the document that inspired it, it’s a declaration.  (Richard Allen)

Pre-order here; release date 31 July

The Quietus

Max Richter is that rare avant-garde composer guided by raw emotion as much as by steely intellect. He deploys his compassion and earnestness with devastating alacrity on his new album, an opus celebrating human dignity and advocating on behalf of the disadvantaged and discriminated-against. But while the higher purpose behind Voices is obviously beyond reproach, the surprise is just how much joy it contains.

Richter’s work has always brimmed with empathy .That has been the case whether he was writing sophisticated lullaby suites (Sleep) or applying a post-modern context to Vivaldi (Recomposed by Max Richter: Vivaldi – The Four Seasons). Such values are again to the fore on Voices, which pays tribute to but also advocates fiercely on behalf of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

In the summer of coronavirus and Black Lives Matter, the importance of us all uniting and standing up for one another is obvious. Richter, however, isn’t here to preach.

Voices instead, humbly yet with tremendous fortitude, bears witness to the Declaration of Human Rights and the part it has played in giving a voice to those who might otherwise have been left suffer in silence. It opens with a recording from 1948 of Eleanor Roosevelt quoting from the preamble to the Declaration, drafted as humanity lurched from the evils of the Second World War to the asphyxiating dread of the nuclear arms race.

"Recognition of the inherent dignity and of the equal and inalienable rights of all members of the human family is the foundation of freedom, justice and peace in the world," she says.

The music that folds in around is strident and insistent – but never overbearingly so. In a year in which the world has spun head over heels how apt, moreover that Richter should debut on record his concept of an "upside down orchestra". This consists of 24 cellos, twelve double basses, eight violins, six violas and a harp, aided occasional by soprano Grace Davidson and by understated narration from actor Kiki Layne (If Beale Street Could Talk).

What’s the big idea? Well, it’s that the bass "leads", which gives pieces such as 'Choral' and 'Murmuration' a processional, almost earthen quality. Often the music seems to rise up from beneath your feet, as if Richter is tapping into an essence deeper than everyday human experience. Side by side, he has utilised crowd-sourced recordings, compiled over the past 10 years, of people from around the world reading from the Declaration in a variety of languages.

Richter brings the shutters down not with a crescendo but with the creeping piano fade of 'Mercy'. After the call to arms that went before, this is a retreat inwards, towards stillness and contemplation. Perhaps Richter is telling us that all storms – even the one through which we are currently living – pass eventually and that peace will find us in the end.

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The composer turns to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights of 1948 for inspiration in his bittersweet new orchestral work.