Transcribed by: Denise Stewart
November 10, 2015
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| Photo: Deutsche Grammophon |
Hosts Mary and Blake Larsen of THE LIVING REMINDERS chat with Max Richter, the immeasurably talented composer who writes the score on The Leftovers. He's a German born British composer, who's been an influential voice in the post-minimalist composition and in the meeting of contemporary classical and alternative popular music styles since the 2000's. He has seven solo works including Memory House and Sleep, whose music has been featured on television. And on films such as Prometheus, J. Edgar, Need for Speed, and To The Wonder. We all know him as the composer for our favorite television show on HBO... The Leftovers.
In this episode you'll learn all about: how Max came on the project, the different instruments he uses, the different ways he uses them, how he comes up with certain themes and why, happy accidents, the blending of traditional orchestra with electronica, Easter eggs for season 2, his favorite scores and much more!
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The Living Reminders: Max thank you so much for joining us on The Living Reminders today.
Max Richter: That's no problem. It's a pleasure.
TLR: How did you hear about The Leftovers, and how did you link up with Damon Lindelof?
MR: I got a call from my agent saying you know, these guys have been in touch, which is you know the sort of usual way. Basically, I think Damon had known my records for some years and been sort of fond of those. At the same time, Pete Berg the exec-producer and director of some of season one, had been to see a show on Broadway, a one man version of Macbeth, which had used my music. So they both sort of had me in their brains. And then they sent me the script. I thought the script was just the best thing I'd ever read, basically. I was just like turning the pages. It was just fantastic writing. So it was really just very, in a way, a very easy decision. Having then chatted with Damon on the phone, we got on really well. He's super smart and just a very thoughtful guy and also very into music. So it was just a no-brainer actually to do the show.
TLR: Can you talk about some of the early conversations that you had with Damon, was it about tone or maybe what you wanted to propose to him? How did that go about?
MR: Well he had certain pieces of mine, which he was sort of in love with and they'd been using in the temps. That's always quite interesting. I mean a lot of composers struggle with temp score, which is where the editors are using material to sort of give them some assistance with the editing and the pacing and everything. People struggle with that because they feel like their freedom is sort of being restricted. In my case, I always find it quite useful because directors and filmmakers are not musicians, and it's a way for them to indicate the kinds of things they like. So in this case, they had a bunch of my stuff in the temps, and those were the starting points for our conversations. We spent a lot of time shuffling things back and forth and getting the right colors, and the right palette, and the right sort of tone for the thing. A brand new project is always a voyage into the unknown which is very exciting and thrilling, but also at the same time, it's full of questions. A bit like the show itself. It was an organic back and forth process at the beginning to find our language.
TLR: Had you read the book The Leftovers before the series began?
MR: I deliberately didn't read it. I thought about reading it. But then I sort of felt I wanted to come to the material without any preconceptions, to sort of discover it in a way along with the audience. Obviously, a little ahead of them but...(laughs).
TLR: Had you ever scored for television before?
MR: No, this is the first television thing I've done.
TLR: How exciting! How does the television process differ from, I know you've recomposed and rearranged the Vivaldi, and it’s gorgeous by the way. What's that process like for television in comparison to rearranging?
MR: Yeah, well most of my work is actually making my own records and doing concert music. I spend my time composing absolute things, ballets, operas, all sorts of instrumental music and making records. That's the center of my life. I do write for film as well. Although I turn down most things, I really only do things I'm enthusiastic about and I fall in love with. In this case, the process was really, really interesting because in some ways it's like film, but in a film once you've done it, you've done it. In the case of this show, it keeps coming back every week (laughs)...here’s another one. What's great about it is because you have so much time with the characters over this extended ten episodes, you get a chance to really explore more than one dimension of them. I really appreciate that about the television format actually. You don't get just one chance to tell a story from one perspective. You get many chances. You really start to understand the nuances of the characters in a story in a bird's eye view perspective, and it's incredibly satisfying.
TLR: You just said that you were able to pick your different topics, and pick your different scorn jobs, based upon if you love them or not. So, I wanna know what made you fall in love with The Leftovers? In particular…
MR: Yes, well I love the emotionality of it. I thought it's a very humane piece of storytelling, and it's very philosophical. I'm very interested, as we all are, in some level, in these sort of big questions, the fundamental questions about why and how and what is our life and what does it amount to and what do things mean. This the heart of The Leftovers, obviously in this very heightened state because of The Departure. I was just drawn to the themes. I thought it was a very powerful and very compelling set of questions.
TLR: So you talked about big things like what is it all about and why are we here and obviously the show tackles that. We all know it's a heavily emotional show and a really intense subject, which is fantastic because it's rarely explored on television the way that it is on The Leftovers. With that in mind, from where do you draw your inspiration to write about these big themes like that?
MR: Well, I think when I'm working on a project, then I'm sort of living in that world. It's an active imagination. We've all had troubles in our lives. Everyone has been unhappy, everyone has been lost, and everyone has been abandoned in some form. So we all have sort of echoes of these experiences, and I think that's one of the reasons why this show sort of speaks to people quite deeply. It finds a sort of a mirroring, a little bit, in our real lives. From my point of view, when I'm writing the score, I'm with the characters. I'm in that story.
TLR: Speaking about characters, often times characters or places have themes of their own. So, I wanted to know how many different themes have you been working on that may reoccur throughout the show?
MR: Well there are a few. There's The Departure theme itself, which appears right at the beginning of series one. We have that extraordinary opening, which I think is one of the best openings of TV. Then, it recurs in various slowed down and altered versions. Lots of moments in the show it also is rearranged in different ways. Then there is-this is something which isn't so much in season two-but there's a sort of holy music which Wayne had for a while. There is the kind of big, orchestral sort of requiem cue which again starts in episode one of season one, where Tom is under the water in the pool; another amazing piece of cinema, sort of amazing piece of image making I think, in storytelling. So, there are a few that come around.
TLR: We've discussed your inspiration to write about the emotional part of the show and the heaviness of this subject, but we also discussed the themes themselves, but what is the process? How do you decide what you're going to write for each particular character or each particular theme? Is it something that you just start from the ground up and then decide as you're going, or how does that go about?
MR: Well, it's a mix. It's a sort of mixture of lots of theories and best intentions and planning and happy accidents and chaos. You make material which you think will work for a situation and has sort of potential to grow and expand and be developed. You're sort of happily sitting there with a piece of paper and a cup of coffee and you're feeling very happy, and then you put it on the picture and you're like, "That's not it at all!" So it’s that sort of very nice, sort of organic, it’s like a sort of composting project. Lots of material sort of fed in, and it seems to find it’s own way with the images. It seems to connect to the images. Sometimes in ways that you expect and everything goes as planned and sometimes in a very different way. And bits of music which were intended for one situation ends up speaking to another situation much more beautifully. It’s really a fascinating puzzle solving activity.
TLR: Have you ever written a theme, maybe even for The Leftovers or a film you’ve done, where you get it on screen and you look at it and you go, “Oh, God, no. That was the worst choice I’ve ever made?”
MR: Well that happens most days. (Laughs)
TLR: Does any character or theme feature distinct instruments that aren’t typically used?
MR: Well the score, generally speaking, is made up of instruments with a pronounced sort of decay in the sound. Instruments that don’t have a sustained tone. That means things like the piano, celesta, little bits of percussion and stuff. In a way that’s a sort of hint, really, within the texture of the music that this is all about things disappearing. So it’s not obvious, but I like that idea. That somehow the very fabric of the music not only the notes, but the actual physical properties of the music sort of mirror the image of the great theme of the show. Beyond that there’s an awful lot of piano. Piano is my instrument. I also think it has a kind of simplicity and naturalness which is appropriate for this show. But the piano itself is not an ordinary piano. It’s a piano that has been muted with lots of felt inside it. So it sounds very dark. In a way it has a kind of transparency in that it lets you see the story and hear the story, which I think works in this context.
TLR: Wow, hearing that about the piano with the felt and making it much darker, I really like that. That’s really cool. I obviously don’t have the trained ear that my wife has, because she’s a musician, but are there any other instruments that you’ve used in an atypical way? I mean like you used the felt.
MR: Yes. There’s a whole recurring sequence of orchestral material which happens in moments of anxiety and tension. This is a string orchestra which is being processed by a bunch of guitar pedals and distortion effects. So it sounds like a fuzzy, droning landscape. We made that actually with a string orchestra. So there are things like that that are sort of subversions of the normal. So you sort of feel the fingerprints of the original sources in that. So it’s sort of both familiar and unfamiliar, and I think that suits the material.
TLR: You talk about using a string orchestra. Is that something that you do each time you record? Or is some of it synth? (MR: It’s a mix) It’s a mix?
MR: It’s mostly the real recordings but as I say, there’s sort of a collision in there with some electronic media. And I enjoy that hybrid language actually.
TLR: Did you change any instrumentation in season two for the new characters or just because it’s a new location?
MR: I did. I made some. There are different kinds of electronics. It’s a slightly brighter palette. And also there’s some...it being Texas I had to do some slide guitar things, which I thought would be fun. And there are very few of those, I don’t use it really in order to play things which feel like songs, but they’re more like atmospheres. The show relies (with the score) a lot on atmospheres. I felt that it would be nice to have some pedal steel guitar in there.
TLR: A lot of our fans have been very excited that we were going to be speaking with you. and they’ve been mentioning different moments that have been their favorites, different songs that have been their favorites. But we want to know if YOU have a favorite moment that you’ve scored for the show?
MR: There’s a few, you know. There’s a few. Well let’s see, the swimming pool sequence at the opening in series one, that’s an amazing sequence. That’s the first of these big orchestral numbers, which I love. There’s the Matt and Mary sequence the first time we really meet them. There’s a string quartet moment that works very nicely. There’s the Laurie didn’t forget sort of a lighter queue where it’s at a heart breaking scene. An unbelievably heart breaking scene. Again season one. There’s so many. I mean the thing about this show is it’s full of amazing images and incredible acting. Beautifully directed and amazing acting. There are just lots and lots of moments I loved scoring.
TLR: I think you can tell when a show is really succeeding is when the music helps define the show itself. In particular in Lost, I read a bunch of articles where Damon wrote certain scenes with Michael Giacchino’s score in mind. A lot of people are feeling that way about you and this show. In that your score is helping to define the show in a lot of ways. And the reaction is overwhelmingly positive. In fact I have it on my iTunes. I was listening to it right before we spoke to you. Did you have any idea that people would like it so much they way they have?
MR: Well, not really to be honest. I mean I think the thing is whenever you are starting a new project, you really have lots of intentions and ideas, but you really don’t know what it is you are making, or how it will go until you’ve made it. And until it’s in front of the audience. Until then it’s really all theoretical. We felt excited. We felt like we had something when we did the first season. I think we did. I think there was a buzz. And I think that continues. There’s a lot of excitement and a lot of good creative vibes in the team. So I guess we’re doing something right.
TLR: Do you help pick any of the non-score for the show? Do you have any input on that? Like on the previous episodes they did the Lo Fang cover of "You're the One That I Want." Do you have any input on that?
MR: No, I don’t actually. No. I leave that to Liza(Richardson) a most brilliant music genius. And that’s all out of my hands. But I have to say the choice of songs is relentlessly brilliant.
TLR: Well, while you’re giving props to Liza, I wanted to know if you had any other musicians, or composers actually. Who are some upcoming composers? Who are some upcoming composers that you think we should be listening to?
MR: Ahhh. Interesting thought. Well there’s just like a million of them. On the other hand, by the time I’ve heard of them, they’re probably not upcoming any more. Because I’m very, very busy. I have to have a think. There are millions I’m sure. But I’m slightly drawing a blank right now. Sorry guys.
TLR: Totally OK. Well, how about this? What is one of your favorite scores of all time?
MR: Well, um…(TLR: We kind of put you in the hot seat). I guess I sort of gravitate to things which feel really quite classic and quite musical. That means historical stuff, like Ennio Morricone scores. Stuff like, for example, I watched a Marty Shaw scored film the other day. Doctor Zhivago, an amazing score, absolutely magical. And then more recent things, more electronic stuff. Things like a lot of Clint Mansell scores are great. He does wonderful work. Again, there are so many, but I basically love music which feels like it’s really, really bringing something to the images and to the picture. So things which are thematic and kind of stand on their own.
TLR: I loved Clint Mansell’s work on The Fountain. Have you ever heard that?
MR: Yea, he does great things. He’s very creative.
TLR: Yea, he’s great. And the other one I really like too is Daft Punk for the Tron: Legacy soundtrack.
MR: OK. I don’t know that one so...
TLR: OHH, if you like electronic, and I know you do, you gotta listen to that one.(MR: OK) They did a great a great job. It just makes you feel visceral when you’re listening to it.
(MR: Sure) And with that in mind too, when people are listening to your score for The Leftovers, really The Leftovers in particular, but any piece that you’ve done, what do you want the viewers or your listeners to feel when they hear your music?
MR: Well, in the case of a score, I want them to feel the story more strongly and what’s going on on the screen. I want them to be absorbed and transported. I’m not sure I really want them to hear the music, to be honest. I want the music to sort of...I want them to inhabit the music but without knowing they’re inhabiting it. That’s the sort of alchemy we’re looking for. Of course it’s nice if people are aware of it and hear it. That’s great. But i want them to feel like it’s part of the texture of that world.
TLR: Well you’re doing a great job. A lot of the composers that we listen to, Blake and I, because I’m a musician especially, we really pay a lot of attention to the music in the shows that we watch. And the way I feel about yours is it’s a second location, for me. It’s not just New York or now Miracle. Your score for this show doesn’t jar me away from what’s going on. It’s just another location for me. So I really applaud you. It’s working.
MR: Well that’s a very nice way to think of it actually. I mean I sort of feel in a way like music is a place. You know each piece of music is it’s own place. That’s great that you would say that.
TLR: Have you completed the recording for season two or are you still tweaking things and working on them?
MR: We’re very close to finishing. Very close.
TLR: Is there something that we should be looking forward to that you could maybe, not obviously spoil, but like maybe give an Easter egg that we should listen to?
MR: An Easter egg, ooh, very difficult. I’ll say something stupid. No. It’s more variations of the same. There are no...I don’t think there are anything...no Alphorn solos. There’s nothing that’s going to feel dramatically from another world.
TLR: Max, thank you so much. We are really enjoying it. And we are excited to see what you have in store for us for the rest of season two of The Leftovers. I want to know, outside of The Leftovers, what else do you have coming up for yourself with your music?
MR: Well, I’m right in the middle of sort of touring a big project of my own called Sleep, which is an eight hour-eight and an a half hour long, overnight piece. Which we’ve been playing live. And that is quite the project.
TLR: It sounds like it. What’s the instrumentation for Sleep?
MR: Sleep is strings, vocals and a lot of computers and pianos and all of that. So, yea, it’s quite a big one to get going. It’s a...it’s a thrill every time we get through it honestly. The morning comes and we’re just relieved.
TLR: Are you conducting this? Or do you have a conductor for you?
MR: No I play the piano and all computers and synthesizers and all kinds of things.
TLR: Wow! You must have a lot of coffee.
MR: We go through a lot of coffee. That’s what we do.
TLR: You must have really strong hands too. (MR: That’s right) OH my word. Max where can our listeners find you? Either on social media or website or anything of that nature?
MR: Yes, the website is maxrichtermusic.com and Twitter and Facebook are the same maxrichtermusic. And, yea, that’s it.
TLR: Well, this is an absolute pleasure and as you said, I am very excited that we got to speak on Adolphe Sax’s birthday. What a great day to speak to another musician. (MR: Absolutely). Yes, well thank you so much again Max, for coming on our podcast. Once again we are The Living Reminders and it has been an absolute joy to be speaking with you.
MR: Thank you. It was a pleasure.
What moves you about the music from The Leftovers? Are you enjoying the original score, the additional music selections, or both? Would you want to attend a show that spanned overnight like Sleep?
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