Max Richter - Sleep (BBC Radio premiere, Sept. 2015)

Shortly after the release of German-British composer Max Richter (b. 1966)'s "eight-hour lullaby" Sleep and its accompanying one-hour album From Sleep in September 2015, an invited audience took to their sleeping bags in the Reading Room of London's Wellcome Collection museum/library of health science for a unique night's rest.

From midnight to 8am, Richter, a small string group (working in shifts) and a soprano singer performed the work's live premiere, which was given a record-breaking live broadcast on BBC Radio 3 - the longest uninterrupted piece of music they'd ever aired live. [To note for the download: there are occasional dropouts of a few seconds each - I can't remember now if this occurred during the recording, or if they're due to the limitations of the get_iplayer sound grabber or file converter that I used, when dealing with such a gargantuan file.]

In Richter's words, 'I think of Sleep as an experiment into how music and the mind can interact in this other state of consciousness, one we all spend decades of our lives completely immersed in, but which is so far rather poorly understood. I consulted with [American neuroscientist] David Eagleman on how music can relate to the sleep state and have incorporated our conversations in the compositional process of the work'.

The audience at the premiere were specifically invited to sleep through as much of the performance as they could, and then describe the sensations they experienced.  I've certainly spent one or two interesting nights sleeping through this recording (when I could manage the full night without my earphones falling out) and occasionally half-waking to the gentle soundscape.

The 31 sections of Sleep range from simple piano pulses, to deep electronics, gorgeous string arrangements and wordless flights for the soprano voice.  Needless to say, I've never heard the entire thing whilst fully awake - might give it a try some day, but I suspect Richter wouldn't approve.

Taking in the occasional random half-hour is fun, to pay closer attention to the construction of the different segments, and the microscopic development (or sometimes hypnotic non-development) within them.  Which I suspect is what Richter was trying to do with the release of the more manageable From Sleep - which I don't see around as much these days, but will probably order a copy at some point.

link, no pw - one mp3 file, 1.8GB :)

Album cover for the full studio recording