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The KPAC Blog features classical music news, reviews, and analysis from South Texas and around the world.

Max Richter: Tiny Desk (Home) Concert

Max Richter brings a diverse playlist with him for an NPR Music Guest DJ session.
Yulia Mahr
/
Courtesy of Deutsche Grammophon
Composer Max Richter.

The Tiny Desk is working from home for the foreseeable future. Introducing NPR Music's Tiny Desk (home) concerts, bringing you performances from across the country and the world. It's the same spirit — stripped-down sets, an intimate setting — just a different space.


There's a distinct dissonance between the bucolic setting of this lovely Max Richter Tiny Desk (home) concert and the reality he references after his performance.

"Looking forward to the time when gigs can come back and we can do this for real," the composer says, leaving us with a yearning that is borne out in his tranquil, probing music.

These half-dozen short pieces can offer two very different modes of experience. Shot in artful black and white, their simplicity and beauty invite us into a world as we once knew it, where fresh air wafts through open doors and dogs peacefully snooze (canine cameos by Evie and Haku) in the late summer sunshine in southern England.

On the other hand, the chaos found in the real world we know today can find a balm in Richter's soothing, oscillating figures in "Infra 3" or the gently swaying chords of "Origins," where the music lumbers in the lower half of the keyboard.

There's a mysterious potency in instrumental music, where the mind is open to wander and free-associate. Max Richter taps into that power with singular grace and humanity.

SET LIST

  1. "Vladimir's Blues"

  1. "Origins"

  1. "Infra 3"

  1. "Horizon Variations"

  1. "Prelude 6"

  1. "Fragment"

MUSICIANS

  1. Max Richter: piano

CREDITS

  1. Video and Audio: Noah Richter-Mahr

  1. Editor: Mike Terry

TINY DESK TEAM

  1. Producer: Bob Boilen

  1. Video Producer: Maia Stern

  1. Audio Mastering: Josh Rogosin

  1. Associate Producer: Bobby Carter

  1. Tiny Production Team: Kara Frame, Morgan Noelle Smith

  1. Executive Producer: Lauren Onkey

  1. Senior VP, Programming: Anya Grundmann

Copyright 2021 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org.

Tom Huizenga is a producer for NPR Music. He contributes a wide range of stories about classical music to NPR's news programs and is the classical music reviewer for All Things Considered. He appears regularly on NPR Music podcasts and founded NPR's classical music blog Deceptive Cadence in 2010.