movies/tv

A Modern Day Classical Composer: Four Best Max Richter Film Scores

Musicnotes

• 5 min read
film clapper board, headphones

The name on the tip of everyone's tongue, as the film industry moves further into the 20th century, is that of Max Richter, a German-born British composer. His music can be found in concert halls and on movie screens across the world. He also composes for television, lending his talents to shows such as The Leftovers. The reason for his success lies in his use of the minimalist style that has tapped into the zeitgeist of the times.

Max Richter's Style

Max Richter’s compositions are direct descendants of the minimalist school of music. The descriptor "minimal" first shows up in 1968 as a way to describe music that featured shifting rhythmic and harmonic structures combined with extremely long repetitive passages. Early developers of this sub-genre of avant-garde classical music include Steve Reich, La Monte Young, Philip Glass, Michael Nyman, and Terry Riley.

From an early age, Richter listened to these minimalist composers and others and became a big fan of Kraftwerk, a German electronic pop band. He then studied composition and piano at the University of Edinburgh and the Royal Academy of Music and completed more composition studies with the great contemporary composer Luciano Berio. All of these influences come together to create Richter's unique musical voice.

Some of the hallmarks of Richter's style include the following:

  • Lush tonal harmonies that change slowly
  • Electro-acoustic soundscapes that combine traditional instruments with manipulated electronics
  • Slow-moving repetitious rhythms
  • Lack of formal structures

Richter's music has become some of the most sought-after in the modern classical market. Critics laud it for being accessible and cathartic, while filmmakers have found it a suitably unobtrusive canvas for their storytelling.

Max Richter's Filmography

The list of Max Richter movies is slowly growing. His first film score was for the TV movie Geheime Geschichte in 2004. He now has over 50 television and film credits. Much of his work has been in the indy and art house genres. These are films that are naturally suited to Richter's more contemplative, meditative sound. Here are some of his best soundtracks.

1. Waltz With Bashir (2008)

Ari Folman's adult animated film about the 1982 Lebanon War premiered at the 2008 Cannes Film Festival, where it was highly acclaimed. It went on to win the Golden Globe for Best Foreign Language Film. All of this brought attention to Max Richter's score, which was acknowledged to perfectly capture the angst and suffering of the movie.

There are many of Richter's style markers in this early work. The harmonies are simple, tonal, and dark. There is not a true melody, but rather shifting sonorities and inversions that provide a feeling of movement. Pulsating rhythms heighten tension when necessary.

2. Shutter Island (2010)

Technically speaking, Max Richter did not score Martin Scorsese's film Shutter Island. This movie has no original score. Musician and Scorsese collaborator Robbie Robertson collected and organized previously recorded material for the soundtrack. Much of this music is avant-garde or contemporary in style. Composers like John Cage, Krzysztof Penderecki, and Lou Harrison were included.

Robertson also included the Max Richter composition "On the Nature of Daylight," which proved to be quite advantageous for Richter. This was the first mainstream movie directed by a prominent director to use Richter's music. It, therefore, reached a wider audience and spread "On the Nature of Daylight" to listeners that otherwise would not ever hear Richter's music.

This is another classic Richter score, opening with cellos playing a somber, slow-moving chorale. Eventually, other strings join in, adding sonority and thickening the texture. Through it all, the initial chorale remains intact, providing the foundation for the entire piece.

3. Mary Queen of Scots (2018)

This historical drama from director Josie Rourke proved to be an appropriate vehicle for Richter's music. You can hear many of his favorite compositional techniques in the score, such as low-bass drones and slow chorales. There is also a good amount of diegetic music, for which Richter chose songs from the period. An example is John Dowland's famous piece for lute and voice, "Flow, My Tears."

For his work on Mary Queen of Scots, Richter won in 2018 the Best Original Score for a Feature Film prize at the Hollywood Music in Media Awards. The success of this score further solidified his movie music style. You will hear a masterful blending of rhythmic ostinatos, arpeggiated chords repeated a lá Phillip Glass, and chords that slowly phase in and out of sync with each other.

4. Ad Astra (2019)

Not your typical sci-fi movie, Ad Astra by director James Gray has a dramatic psychological subtext that's ideal for the Max Richter musical treatment. His ponderous and meditative sonorities are an apt underscore for a long journey through space. In addition to the full orchestra typically used for film scores, Richter employs a Moog System 55 for futuristic elements.

One of the most creative aspects of this score is an electro-acoustic addition. Richter was inspired by the journeys of the Voyager I and II probes that were launched into space in 1977. Information from these probes was sent back to Earth via radio signals. Richter gathered plasma wave data from the probes and converted it into musical sounds.

As characters are traveling past specific planets in the film, Richter embeds the plasma wave music from that planet into the score. He feels that this gives the soundtrack a location-specific realism that is almost more felt than heard. The music is subliminally supporting the storytelling in a physical way, not just aural.

Up Next for Max Richter

For Max Richter, the world is truly his oyster. His brand of minimalism is very popular right now, with both film and TV producers and the general public. His eight-and-a-half-hour work, "Sleep," has been streamed more than 500 million times. That's a phenomenal number for minimalism. He has several upcoming programs featuring his concert music and is constantly recording albums.

As for film scoring, there are no doubt more projects underway. He is the darling of the art houses. His film scores permit the story to rise to the top and support the director's vision in fresh and imaginative ways.

Sources

  • https://www.masterclass.com/articles/minimalism-music-guide
  • https://www.gramophone.co.uk/features/article/contemporary-composer-max-richter#:~:text=Post%2Dclassical%2C%20neoclassical%2C%20post,his%20music%20makes%20us%20feel.
  • http://userhome.brooklyn.cuny.edu/anthro/jbeatty/Scotia/issue76/issue76a.html
  • https://www.slantmagazine.com/film/interview-max-richter-on-his-ad-astra-score-and-its-so-called-planetary-instruments/