Max Richter’s Voices, his powerful musical response to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, is to be broadcast by BBC Radio 3 on December 10, global Human Rights Day. It will be the first broadcast of the piece – which includes passages adapted from the 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights – and will be performed in a new version for 24-piece ensemble including strings, four-member choir, electronics, solo soprano and narrator. Artists will include Richter himself and his ensemble, conductor Robert Ziegler, violinist Viktoria Mullova, soprano Grace Davidson, the choir Tenebrae, and actor Sheila Atim as the narrator.

The work’s origins date back to 2010 and a piece Richter wrote for Hilary Hahn called Mercy – which forms part of the final work – though the full piece, which Richter developed with his creative partner Yulia Mahr, only received its world premiere in February this year, in London. It was subsequently released on Decca in July, at which time Gramophone’s Editor Martin Cullingford spoke to Max Richter about the piece for a Gramophone podcast.

The BBC performance will be recorded on December 4 at BBC Maida Vale studios (sessions which will comply with all relevant Covid rules), and the broadcast on December 10 will be shared by 35 European Broadcasting Union radio stations in Europe and beyond. The broadcast will also feature Richter’s 2008 piece Infra, the composer’s response to the London terror attacks of July 2007.

Gramophone recently profiled Max Richter in our Contemporary Composer feature: read here