The Blue Notebooks

The Blue Notebooks is the second album by British producer and composer Max Richter, released on 26 February 2004 on 130701, an imprint of FatCat Records.
On 11 May 2018, a two-disc version of The Blue Notebooks was reissued by Deutsche Grammophon to commemorate its fifteenth anniversary. It includes remixes by other artists, re-recordings, and two alternate arrangements of "On the Nature of Daylight".

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 meditation 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 and TV

The tracks "Shadow Journal" and "Organum" were included in the soundtrack of the animated documentary Waltz with Bashir.
"On the Nature of Daylight" has been extensively used in cinema. It appeared in the 2006 Will Ferrell film Stranger than Fiction, Disconnect, directed by Henry Alex Rubin, The Face of an Angel, directed by Michael Winterbottom, The Innocents, directed by Anne Fontaine, the documentary Jiro Dreams of Sushi, directed by David Gelb, and Togo, directed by Ericson Core. It is also used on the soundtrack of Martin Scorsese's 2010 film, Shutter Island, in its original form and remixed with Dinah Washington's vocals from her 1960 hit "This Bitter Earth". This remixed version was also used in the closing scenes of "La French" directed by Cédric Jimenez. It has also been used in the Hulu Original TV series Castle Rock during the ending scene of the episode "The Queen" following into the credits. The BBC used it for their coverage of the centenary of the Battle of the Somme in 2016. In 2019, it was used in a Korean TV series Dazzling during the 11th episode. It was additionally used in both the opening and closing sequences of the 2016 film Arrival, the use of which disqualified the original score from contending for an Oscar. In 2020 the song appeared in the 35th anniversary of Eastenders. In 2020 the song also appeared in Episode 6 of the British sitcom The Trip To Greece. The song featured in the 2nd episode of Apple TV+ original series Amazing Stories, released in April 2020.
The track "Vladimir's Blues" is featured throughout all three seasons of the TV series The Leftovers.

Critical reception

The Blue Notebooks received widespread critical acclaim from contemporary music critics.
Mark Pytlik of Pitchfork 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 on 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. 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