The Blue Notebooks

Background

Richter composed The Blue Notebooks in the run-up to the 2003 invasion of Iraq. He has described it as 'a protest album about Iraq, a mediation on violence – both the violence that I had personally experienced around me as a child and the violence of war, at the utter futility of so much armed conflict.' The album was recorded about a week after mass protests against the war.

The album features readings from Franz Kafka's The Blue Octavo Notebooks and Czesław Miłosz's Hymn of the Pearl and Unattainable Earth. Both readings are by the British actress Tilda Swinton.

Use in films

The track "On the Nature of Daylight" was used in the 2006 Will Ferrell film Stranger than Fiction, in Disconnect (2012) directed by Henry Alex Rubin, in The Face of an Angel (2014) directed by Michael Winterbottom, in The Innocents (2016) directed by Anne Fontaine, and in Arrival (2016) directed by Denis Villeneuve . It also appears on the soundtrack of Martin Scorsese's 2010 film, Shutter Island; it was also mixed with Dinah Washington's vocal from her 1960 hit "This Bitter Earth" for the same movie and soundtrack.

"Shadow Journal" and "Organum" were both included in the soundtrack of the Ari Folman film "Waltz with Bashir." The film's original score was composed by Richter.

Critical reception

The Blue Notebooks received widespread critical acclaim from contemporary music critics.

Mark Pytlik of Pitchfork Media gave the album a very positive review, explaining, "The Blue Notebooks is a case study in direct, minor-key melody. Each of the piano pieces "Horizon Variations", "Vladimir's Blues" and "Written in the Sky" establish strong melodic motifs in under two minutes, all the while resisting additional orchestration. Elsewhere, Richter's string suites are similarly striking; "On the Nature of Daylight" coaxes a stunning rise out of gently provincial arrangements while the comparatively epic penultimate track "The Trees" boasts an extended introductory sequence for what is probably the album's closest brush with grandiosity. Richter's slightly less traditional pieces also resound; both the underwater choral hymnal "Iconography" and the stately organ piece "Organum" echo the spiritual ambience that characterized his work for Future Sound of London." Pytlik continued, stating, "There is absolutely nothing exclusive or contrived-feeling about it. In fact, not only is Richter's second album one of the finest of the last six months, it is also one of the most affecting and universal contemporary classical records in recent memory."

Track listing

All tracks written by Max Richter.