Superstar contemporary composer Max Richter talks to Hugh Robertson about his new album Exiles, using music to make sense of a chaotic world, and why the United Nations Declaration of Human Rights remains more relevant than ever.

Max Richter
Max Richter. Image © Mike Terry

Max Richter has never been afraid to examine big issues in his music.

His breakthrough came with his album The Blue Notebooks, which the composer describes as “the Iraq War protest album”; Infra was a response to the 7/7 bombings in London in 2005; another celebrated work is his soundtrack to Waltz with Bashir, an animated film about an Israeli soldier dealing with the aftermath of the 1982 invasion of Lebanon.

Exiles, his new album out now on Deutsche Grammophon, gathers together pieces from all of these projects alongside...