Max Richter: Hamnet Live

The cinematically beautiful 2026 movie Hamnet, a poignant imagining of the deep love and grief experienced by Shakespeare and his wife Agnes Hathaway, required a soundtrack of equal emotional and contemplative depth. As he tells Apple Music Classical, composer Max Richter rose to the considerable challenge: “I used the basic elements of Elizabethan music—period instrumentation, grammar, and sensibility—but applied them in ways that emerge directly from the story’s psychology.” The result is an album of timeless beauty that brilliantly communicates the film’s emotions to its modern audience. In this exclusive Apple Music Classical Session, you can hear three tracks from Richter’s soundtrack, newly arranged for a live session. “See things that others don’t”, “Of the sky” and “Of the undiscovered country” were performed in concert in January 2026 at London’s Southwark Cathedral by a specially assembled orchestra and Tenebrae choir, featuring Richter on the piano. The cathedral, just around the corner from the Globe Theatre where Hamlet was premiered around 1601, has strong Shakespeare connections. The family worshipped there, and the playwright’s brother is buried near the choir area. Today, the cathedral remembers Shakespeare with its famous reclining statue, and stained glass depicting scenes from his greatest plays.