\t\t\t\tThe Covid situation in Australia has deteriorated in recent months after the conservative NSW government allowed it to spread (after a lax approach to quarantine – privatising the service). For the last 9 weeks or so I have been stuck in another state, away from home, and wondering when I could get back across the border again. Well yesterday I finally acquired a travel permit to cross the border between NSW and Victoria and 10 hours later (by car) I am now back at home. So I am catching up on things this afternoon (with two computer monitors – yeah) and there will be no formal blog post. But there is some music. Back tomorrow.
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Sometimes you need to really concentrate on a new album and play it several times to appreciate the nuances and subtlety of the performance by the artist(s) and the mastering by the producer.<\/p>\n
So a long road trip, when no-one else is in the vehicle and volume can be adjusted to suit the single taste (loud in this case), is a pretty good platform for accomplishing that aim.<\/p>\n
Just such an album is – Voices<\/a> – by the post minimalist composer – Max Richter<\/a>.<\/p>\n It was released last year (July 31, 2020) and was “inspired by the Universal Declaration of Human Rights”.<\/p>\n This article (June 25, 2020) – Max Richter Announces New Album \u2018Voices\u2019<\/a> – provides some background about how the readings were organised and sourced.<\/p>\n The album has a voiced section (with various readings) and then the voiceless version of the music.<\/p>\n Here is the full album, which uses what Max Richter refers to as a “negative orchestra” (“nearly all basses and cellos”).<\/p>\n At some stages in the album you think you hear a deep rumbling – one of the deepest sound the human ear can hear I suspect – and it is a very stark background to the negative orchestra.<\/p>\n The whole album is 56 minutes then repeats in voiceless mode.<\/p>\n My favourite track is Mercy with the solo violin played by – Mari Samuelson<\/a>.<\/p>\n Mercy begins at 48:51 and then at the end of the second version of the album.<\/p>\n A breathtaking way to spend 10 hours driving a car I can tell you.<\/p>\n