Bashir Waltz

Analekta is very proud to announce the release of Portrait: Max Richter by Angèle Dubeau & La Pietà. “I devote my new Portrait album to Max Richter and his impressive body of powerful and original works. I have selected sixteen works with his unique signature, which I revisit here with my violin and my orchestra, La Pietà.” - Angèle Dubeau O.C., C.Q., DFA Max Richter is one of the most influential composers of his generation.

Combining classical discipline with the inventive spirit of electronic music, Max Richter speaks to – and frequently critiques – 21st century life with evocative elegance.

Combining classical discipline with the inventive spirit of electronic music, Max Richter speaks to – and frequently critiques – 21st century life with evocative elegance. On early masterworks such as 2002's Memoryhouse and 2003's The Blue Notebooks, the composer and producer united his childhood memories and commentary on war's devastating aftermath into gorgeous, aching music; with 2015's eight-hour Sleep, he challenged the increasing disposability of art and music as well as audiences' ever-decreasing attention spans. Richter's fascination with the growing role of technology in everyday life was a major theme of releases spanning 2008's collection of bespoke ringtones to the music for a particularly paranoid 2016 episode of the TV series Black Mirror. Despite the high-concept nature of much of his work, Richter always maintains a powerful emotional connection with his listeners. 2012's Recomposed: The Four Seasons, an experimental reimagining of Vivaldi's violin concertos, topped classical charts in over 20 countries. The emotive quality of his music translated perfectly to scoring and soundtrack work, which ranged from documentaries such as Waltz with Bashir (2008); feature films including Ad Astra (2019); television series like Invasion (2021); and stage productions including Infra (2008) and Woolf Works (2015), both projects with Richter's longtime collaborator, choreographer Wayne McGregor. Richter's mix of modern composition, electronic music, and field recordings – which he revisited on 2024's In a Landscape – was as influential as it was innovative, paving the way for artists such as Nico Muhly and Jóhann Jóhannsson.

Deutsche Grammophon has released the official soundtrack album for the German drama Never Look Away (Werk ohne Autor). The album features the film’s original music composed by Max Richter (The Leftovers, Waltz with Bashir, Hostiles, Miss Sloane, White Boy Rick, Taboo, Disconnect). The soundtrack is now available to download on Amazon, where you can also check out audio samples. Never Look Away is written and directed by Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck (The Lives of Others) and stars Tom Schilling, Sebastian Koch, Paula Beer, Oliver Masucci and Saskia Rosendahl. The movie is set in post-war East Germany and follows the lives of a doctor and an artist, both struggling to reconcile their personal aspirations with their country’s politics. The drama, which has been selected as Germany’s entry in the Best Foreign Language category for next year’s Academy Awards, has just opened in German theaters this week and will be distributed in the U.S. by Sony Pictures Classics.

Blending classical, electronic, and rock influences into a style he calls "post-classical," composer/programmer Max Richter ignores boundaries in favor of haunting, strangely familiar sounds. This approach made him an in-demand composer for film and other types of performing arts, as well as an acclaimed artist in his own right. Born in Germany in the mid-'60s, Richter and his family moved to the U.K. when he was still a little boy; by his early teens, he was listening to the canon of classical music as well as modern composers including Philip Glass, whose sound was a major influence on Richter.

Directed by Ari Folman, starring Robin Wright, Jon Hamm, Paul Giamatti and Harvey Keitel, The Congress blends live-action and psychedelic animation as an aging, out-of-work actress accepts her final job: preserving her digital image for a future Hollywood. Empire Magazine proclaims it "an extraordinary and very touching film that exists somewhere in the twilight zone between the existential brainteasers of Charlie Kaufman and the psychedelic wonders of Hayao Miyazaki."