An Evening with Max Richter (No Sleeping Involved)

My musical love affair with Max Richter began with “The Leftovers”, which is a show that I watched multiple times during a time when my life changed in a big way. So, sometimes I say, “This show changed my life,” because it feels like it did.

And a large part of that is the music. In particular, Max Richter’s score, which elevated an already incredible piece of art to an once-in-a-lifetime masterpiece. It moved me emotionally, and it moved me through some major changes in my life:

• going freelance
  • which has been 5 years now, wtf?!
• moving to michigan
  • falling in love with detroit
    • and the midwest in general, i think?
• logan needing (and getting!) a heart transplant
  • to be fair, Jeff Russo’s score for “For All Mankind” did a lot of heavy lifting there, too.

And now I fall to sleep with him every night. Seriously, I’ve listened to his 8.5-hour album “Sleep” every single night this year and have been tracking my sleep scores. Yes, I’m writing blogs about it.

Enough about how much I love Max Richter. I do that all over this blog at almost all times.

Last night I got to see him (and five other musicians and one reader) live. At the Jack White Masonic Temple Theater. And the whole night was stunning.

Even I looked cute:

That is just a natural, no pose pic. Much like I like to write natural because I think folks are forgetting what humans sound like, I sometimes like to just snap unposed pics, because I also think people forget what unposed humans look like. (ok ok don’t get carried away, that’s a blog for another time).

I hopped into what might have been the worst Lyft ride of my life (too much cologne, no music, constantly accepting rides, swervy driving, hard to find seatbelt, etc etc) and arrived at the theater about 20 minutes before the doors opened.

It was raining. Don’t worry, I had an umbrella

I got it the day I went to the symphony.

There was a line, and that surprised me. Who else was as passionate about this musician as me? Turns out, all kinds of people. From all walks of life. I saw elderly couples with white hair, while two seats down from me was a 9-year-old who was rapt the entire time. I saw everything in between. A real rainbow of humanity, and that felt right.

I overheard conversations about how people discovered Max Richter. I felt warm all over every time I heard “The Leftovers”. I heard a group debating the merits of each piece we’d be hearing that night. They were as passionate about this I was.

Also, I saw all sorts of different fashion:

• jeans and a ball cap
• formal gown with the most stunning purse in detroit
  • she sat in front of me and to the left.
    • she silently cried just as much as i did
• shorts and a short-sleeved collared shirt
  • and a visor for some reason
• perfectly cut suit in a stunning slate grey color
• church dresses
  • yes, with hats

and so on and so forth. It seemed there wasn’t a template for a Max Richter fan. And I loved it.

I didn’t love my chair though. It was a fancy folding one, because I was up close in the normal “pit” area. The view was lovely. I had laser focus on Max Richter and, for “The Blue Notebooks”, the reader. I had clear eyes on the two violinists, but had to strain to see the two cellists and didn’t even know there was a viola back there until Max introduced them. My butt hurt at the end of the night, and that was the only negative of the night.

Except for the umbrella panic.

When I walked into the building, they had buckets for us to put our umbrellas in. We would pick them up at the end of the night. I had my umbrella clipped to my purse, because I am me and of course I did. Somehow it got tangled, because of course it did. So it took me an embarrassingly long time to untangle my umbrella and place it in a bucket where I was sure I would never see it again.

I found my seat with no problem. The theater was gorgeous.

After I got seated, I had about 45 minutes to wait, so I scrolled on my phone manically (I even searched “Max Richter” on Reddit for some reason). Then the lights dimmed, and I snapped one last pic before I put my phone away forever (or at least until intermission).

The things this stage did to me, y’all. Okay, so this concert was two pieces:

• In A Landscape
• intermission
• The Blue Notebooks

I had listened to both extensively in the months leading up to this. I was ready. I was prepared for “The Blue Notebooks” to do me in emotionally, and it did. But “In a Landscape” devastated me in a way I was not expecting.

When the first low tones began, I felt them deep inside me. The stage lights began shimmering with pale colors as smoke (or swirly fog or whatever you want to call it) filled the stage behind the musicians. At times throughout the show, the smoke got so thick it looked like clouds, and the music was so full you didn’t want to do anything other than look for shapes in fluffy clouds.

And the show provided the clouds for the audience.

The two words I would use to best describe this show would be:

• attention
• intention

They paid attention to every single detail. Max spoke briefly, introducing the first piece and his inspiration, then after the intermission introduced the second piece, the musicians, and the reader.

They paid attention to the audience experience.

They paid attention to each other.

They paid attention to the music.

And so did we.

The audience barely moved. It felt, at times, like we were collectively breathing. More than once, I spied someone silently (and smallly) conducting along.

Max didn’t have to conduct, though. He was part of it. On piano and keyboard and other various electronic devices. The strings looked to him for guidance occasionally. It didn’t seem like they needed to because every single movement of every single person on that stage was done with intention.

I will not go into detail on the music, because I do not feel I can do it justice. I was amazed at how quiet and small they could be, and then big and loud just moments later. Those few musicians filled up the hall (and my body) in an incredible way. I will never forget it.

There were three song moments that stood out: one I was expecting for the audience as a whole, one I was expecting for me, and one slapped me gobsmack in the face.

• ”On the Nature of Daylight”
  • This is the big Max Richter movie soundtrack needle drop.
    • Most recently in “Hamnet”
  • I felt like all of our eyes welled up at the same time when the first strains began.
  • The build felt like I’d never had so much air in my lungs.
  • It was magical.
• “Vladimir’s Blues”
  • From “The Leftovers” score.
  • I felt this in my gut immediately.
  • Then it felt like the rest of the audience felt it too.
  • I think this is the song where the clouds made by nothing but light and smoke somehow reached out into the crowd.
    • sigh, it was so cool.
• “The Trees”
  • This was the final song of the night.
  • IT GOT SO BIG.
  • Like the loudest of the entire show.
  • Then it abruptly stopped.
  • All of it:
    • The lights
    • The smoke
    • The music

Then the audience clapped and whooped, and we all standing-ovationed Yes, it deserved a standing ovation. We all just saw Max Fucking Richter live. We watched him intently read his music. Focus on his playing. Timing even the longest notes with intention. We got to watch Max Motherfucking Richter smile at his fellow musicians. Concentrate at the fast parts. Shake out his hands before sitting back down at the piano.

We got to see Max Richter look proud as hell for what he just did and who he performed it with. I loved every second of it, and if I were wealthy enough, I would become a groupie and go see this again and again.

But I will never be that wealthy, because I’d create projects with friends or help other people out before I’d even get that rich.

And again, the stage. The lights. The smoke. It was all perfectly timed. It was the perfect amount of distraction to really contemplate what we were hearing. Everything had a purpose. Nothing was wasted.

It was perfect.