The album features an extraordinary recording of Virginia Woolf herself, reading from her essay 'Craftsmanship' in a 1937 BBC broadcast.
Composition History
This album, 'Three Worlds: Music From Woolf Works', is based on music Max Richter composed for a ballet by Wayne McGregor at The Royal Ballet, which in turn was inspired by three Virginia Woolf novels: Mrs Dalloway, Orlando, and The Waves.
Composer's Artistic Vision
Max Richter was drawn to Virginia Woolf's writing in his early twenties, finding her work to be a 'pure research into the nature of language, personality, voice and the question of being itself'.
Compositional Technique
The music for the 'Orlando' section of the ballet uses a variation form, transforming the well-known fragment 'La Folia' with both orchestral and wholly electronic elements, including modular synthesis and computer-generated synthesis.
Recording & Production
The album presents the ballet music in new forms to convey its multidimensionality and 110-minute duration within a single album, hence the title 'music from…'.
Compositional Technique
The 'Mrs Dalloway' section of the music includes a field recording of Big Ben, representing the city of London, a sound Virginia Woolf would have heard daily.
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