Max Richter
Memoryhouse
Rating: 4.0/5.0
Label: Fat Cat Records
Max Richter has quite the pedigree. Since graduating from the ridiculously-selective Royal Academy of Music, he’s studied with the late (and great) Luciano Berio, produced Vashti Bunyan’s epochal second effort and commissioned work from some of avant-garde’s most esteemed figures; all while carving out his own compositional niche within the fairly enclosed realm of classical music.
Those of us who’re not directly affiliated with the genre probably got our first encounter with the German native on 2004′s devastatingly-beautiful The Blue Notebooks, a record so gracefully melancholic, it could score an endless number of breakup scenes without getting old. It cut out the extraneous muck that oft-defines contemporary ambient, and delivered exceptional ideas that knew exactly when their time was up. That being said, Richter’s debut effort Memoryhouse is no footnote – recorded with the BBC philharmonic orchestra, it’s an admirable, extended concord, with a lot of propulsion and some truly breathtaking highlights. The album has recently been reissued on the undyingly eclectic Fat Cat Records and manages to sound just as fresh as it did back in 2002.
Memoryhouse’s highlights naturally come when the music has the most room to grow. Seven minute epics like the hauntingly opulent “Arbenita (11 Years)” mix the exiguity of neo-classical’s traditional composers (Steve Reich being the most observable influence) with unorthodox warmth, hovering just below perception. This has a lot to do with the spectral, spoken-word interludes and acute vocalists that gently reoccur throughout the album – they add a powerful human element to the songs, something relatively deficient in modern classical music.
The true triumph of Memoryhouse comes with “Last Days,” a potent, fire-breathing battle-march that absolutely vaporizes anything in its path. It’s the kind of song you hear behind an especially astronomic bombast; before the battle, when Aragorn suits up in his armor, and no one says a word. It’s also probably the most traditional arrangement on the album, sounding more like Mozart than Andriessen, and while music-major blowhards might see that as a shortcoming, that sort of universality is quite enchanting. A mark of a talented composer is one who isn’t overly engrossed with ‘difficult’ music, and is willing to blow the doors off every once in a while.
A significant number of the configurations are congenitally minimal, sometimes spanning little more than a single piano, or a hushed harpsichord. In fact, five of the 18 tracks on Memoryhouse land well within the two minute mark, and serve as sophisticated, single-instrument examinations; like the stringent violin of “Fragment,” or the temperamental mist of “Laika’s Journey.” They’re not as flamboyantly gratifying as some of the more prodigious compositions, but they definitely add to the overall depth of the record. Nonstop grandiloquence can get a little tiring, you know.
Memoryhouse isn’t the most original classical album ever released – it’s clear that Richter has spent years studying the field, and his music comes out more of a tribute to his peers than anything. But it’s not like he’s trying to be progressive.
Memoryhouse asks us to forget all of our useless pretensions we may have with the genre and instead focus on its beauty. A taut violin arpeggio, a perplexing, finger-breaking piano intermission. Simple, incontrovertible sublimity; and honestly, you can’t ask for much more than that.
by Luke Winkie
