MAX RICHTER - Three Worlds: Music From Wolff Works

The mood ranges from gorgeously lush (“In the Garden”) to somber (“War anthem”) to devastatingly aching (“Tuesday”).  Once the album has been played, that final extended track looms over the entire enterprise like a cloud whose rain has already begun to fall, but has not yet hit the earth.  For those unfamiliar with her story, Woolf penned a final, crushing note to her beloved husband, then drowned herself by walking into a river, weighed down by a large stone in her coat.  As Gillian Anderson reads the note, one can’t help but protest, “No!”, to somehow stop, or even pause, what has already occurred.  And yet, and yet, and yet …

Richter’s victory is to provide a soundtrack to Woolf’s life, and even deeper, her heart.  Her moments of joy are fleeting, but identifiable.  Her moments of depression contain their own apologetic beauty.  Even her suicide note was examined as a work of art, by Woolf’s own words a paltry piece of writing.  The music struggles with thoughts of grace given to sorrow, as the act so painful to others has been remembered with forgiveness.  “Memory is the seamstress, and a capricious one at that.” - A Closer Listen