Max Richter slept wonderfully, thank you. ‘I mean, I’m very lucky as far as sleep is concerned,’ says the Germany-born, England-raised composer, 56, with the serenity of someone who never finds himself scrolling through Instagram Reels at 1.39am, who is never tormented by regrets at 4.36am, and whose three children are long past the age of screaming ‘iPad!’ at 6.23am. ‘I go to bed and I’m asleep two seconds later. I basically always sleep well and I recognise that as a great privilege.’
Bastard. But I reckon I would sleep well if I were Max Richter, who seems extraordinarily composed for someone whose music is so full of melancholy. Perched on a sofa in his net-zero ‘art farm’ — a highbrow dream of a recording studio in rural Oxfordshire — he is something that is not supposed to exist: a composer who is both hugely acclaimed and hugely popular. He has written operas, ballets and scores for all the most august classical institutions; collaborated with creative stars from Margaret Atwood to Kim Jones at Dior; soundtracked more than 50 pieces of TV and film (The Last of Us, Black Mirror, Bridgerton…); and clocked up more than three billion streams on Spotify, a figure that wouldn’t disgrace a Korean boyband. ‘I mean, God, I play my [Max Richter] playlist every single day’, said Ms Mainstream, Ellie Goulding, when I interviewed her recently. Now that’s reach.
