Max Richter - The Blue Notebooks (20 Year Edition) (2025) [Official Digital Download]

Combining classical discipline with the inventive spirit of electronic music, Max Richter speaks to – and frequently critiques – 21st century life with evocative elegance. On early masterworks such as 2002's Memoryhouse and 2003's The Blue Notebooks, the composer and producer united his childhood memories and commentary on war's devastating aftermath into gorgeous, aching music; with 2015's eight-hour Sleep, he challenged the increasing disposability of art and music as well as audiences' ever-decreasing attention spans. Richter's fascination with the growing role of technology in everyday life was a major theme of releases spanning 2008's collection of bespoke ringtones to the music for a particularly paranoid 2016 episode of the TV series Black Mirror. Despite the high-concept nature of much of his work, Richter always maintains a powerful emotional connection with his listeners. 2012's Recomposed: The Four Seasons, an experimental reimagining of Vivaldi's violin concertos, topped classical charts in over 20 countries. The emotive quality of his music translated perfectly to scoring and soundtrack work, which ranged from documentaries such as Waltz with Bashir (2008); feature films including Ad Astra (2019); television series like Invasion (2021); and stage productions including Infra (2008) and Woolf Works (2015), both projects with Richter's longtime collaborator, choreographer Wayne McGregor. Richter's mix of modern composition, electronic music, and field recordings – which he revisited on 2024's In a Landscape – was as influential as it was innovative, paving the way for artists such as Nico Muhly and Jóhann Jóhannsson.

Born in West Germany in the mid-'60s, Richter and his family moved to the U.K. when he was still a little boy, settling in the country town of Bedford. By his early teens, he was listening to the canon of classical music as well as modern composers including Philip Glass, whose music was a major influence on Richter. The Clash, the Beatles, and Pink Floyd were also important, along with the early electronic music scene; inspired by artists such as Kraftwerk, Richter built his own analog instruments. He studied composition and piano at Edinburgh University, the Royal Academy of Music, and in Florence with Luciano Berio.

He then became a founding member of the Piano Circus, a contemporary classical group that played works by Glass, Brian Eno, Steve Reich, Arvo Pärt, and Julia Wolfe, and also incorporated found sounds and video into their performances. After ten years and five albums for Decca/Argo, Richter left the group and became more involved in the U.K.'s thriving electronic music scene, collaborating with the Future Sound of London on 1996's Dead Cities (which features a track named after him) and The Isness; he also contributed orchestrations to Roni Size's 2000 album In the Mode.

TRACKLIST

CD 01
1. Max Richter - The Blue Notebooks
2. Max Richter - On the Nature of Daylight
3. Max Richter - Horizon Variations
4. Max Richter - Shadow Journal
5. Max Richter - Iconography
6. Max Richter - Vladimir's Blues
7. Max Richter - Arboretum
8. Max Richter - Old Song
9. Max Richter - Organum
10. Max Richter - The Trees
11. Max Richter - Written on the Sky

CD 02
1. Max Richter - On the Nature of Daylight (Piano Version)
2. Max Richter - Vladimir's Blues (Jlin Remix)
3. Max Richter Orchestra - On the Nature of Daylight
4. Max Richter - Iconography (Konx-Om-Pax Remix)
5. Max Richter - On the Nature of Daylight (Entropy)
6. Max Richter - Vladimir's Blues 2018
7. Max Richter - Cypher
8. Max Richter - A Catalogue of Afternoons
9. Dinah Washington - This Bitter Earth / On The Nature Of Daylight



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