Max Richter Quotes

I feel that recording a song already compromises the magical music one can create in the mind, so the fewer people watering down this process the better.

At the end of the day, I just like to make the best music that I can make and put it out to the world and see how they respond to it.

I try to make my music interesting to me first, then hopefully other people will find it interesting, too.

I made many studio albums and I think the danger of studio recording is that if you do not watch out, you come out with a perfectly sterile performance.

The only way for me to be an artist is to be honest in my craft. If I veer from that, I'm not giving the investors what they want. Sometimes it's my job as an artist to know what I want to do, even when the fans tell me different.

I'm only worried about what I'm doing or how I present music. I just try to do things I want to listen to, and I think that's what everybody else is try doing, too.

A lot of people are like, "How are you going to re-do it?" I'm not worried about what people are going to say because you know people are gonna be like, "It doesn't sound like this... It sounds like this." I'm just going to make music that I know I'm supposed to make.

I don't ever try to anticipate my audience. I just write the songs I want to write, and hope people like 'em.

My primary thing is to make a painting, not necessarily to make a painting to sell for gazillions of dollars, but just to make a painting.

When I'm writing music, I'm not playing a character. I'm not Alice Cooper or Gene Simmons or someone like that, who has acknowledged that they are writing music for a character.

Do not let any record company disturb your creative flow. You are not writing for the record company. You're writing for the public.

I think the key to making records generally is to make 'em for yourself, regardless of the climate in the business.

'Santa Sangre' is the picture I love the best, myself, because 'El Topo' and 'The Holy Mountain' I made with my head, and 'Santa Sangre' I made with my feelings, with my heart. It's an emotional picture. And it's more real for me, that picture.

My approach is to be part of a band that makes music, not hit songs.

The way that I've always gone about making music, the rule of thumb, has just been to make what I love.

When you have an idea for a work and when you've finished your model for it, for the artist it's almost complete, in a way. But then bringing it to the finish is really something you do for the audience. It is always exciting.

I'm not making films just to be bold.

When I write a book... it's the same essential approach to music as with books. It has to be something I want to hear or read. Hopefully the audience comes along, since that's the only way you can write righteously. I have to ask, 'What do I want to hear?' not 'What do people want to hear?'

It's not my concern to make a commercial pop record. I want to make a record of music that I would listen to, that is lyrically rich and has songs that people can relate to - more along the Jakob Dylan route: people who create for the art of it and not necessarily the monetary rewards of it.

The worst state of affairs is when science begins to concern itself with art.

I think most artists would be happy to have bigger audiences rather than smaller ones. It doesn't mean that they are going to change their work in order necessarily to get it, but they're happy if they do get it.

It's just a lot of fun to be able to see your ideas come into fruition. And to see people translate the things that come out of my mind vocally. And to be able to produce vocals and give people my point of view musically. And to be able to sit in the crowd and see people sing the song that I wrote, it's an amazing feeling.

I'm not trying to say I'm this artist who is all artsy and that I only write music for myself, because I don't. I write music for other people to enjoy, so I think about if it'd be an idea someone else would like.

As a director, you never think about how an audience would respond. You can think about that, but you will never change what you're going to do.

I don't want to sound like an aesthete, but one has to be true to the art. And that means being true to the tradition of the art but also being true to your own artistic vision.