The Blue Notebooks is the second album by British producer/composer Max Richter

Max Richter (Composer)

Max Richter is a German-born British composer.-Biography:Richter studied composition and piano at University of Edinburgh, the Royal Academy of Music and with Luciano Berio in Florence. After finishing his studies, Richter co-founded the contemporary classical ensemble Piano Circus...

.

The album features readings from Franz Kafka

Franz Kafka

Franz Kafka was a culturally influential German-language author of short stories and novels. Contemporary critics and academics, including Vladimir Nabokov, regard Kafka as one of the best writers of the 20th century...

's The Blue Octavo Notebooks

The Blue Octavo Notebooks

The Blue Octavo Notebooks is a series of eight notebooks written by Franz Kafka from late 1917 until June 1919. The name was given to them by Max Brod, Kafka's literary executor, to differentiate them from the regular quarto-sized notebooks Kafka used as diaries...

and Czesław Miłosz's Hymn of the Pearl and Unattainable Earth. Both readings are by the British actress Tilda Swinton

Tilda Swinton

Katherine Mathilda "Tilda" Swinton is a British actress known for both arthouse and mainstream films. She has appeared in a number of films including The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, Burn After Reading, The Beach, We Need to Talk About Kevin and was nominated for a Golden Globe for her...

.
The track "On the Nature of Daylight" was used in the 2006 Will Ferrell

Will Ferrell

John William "Will" Ferrell is an American comedian, impressionist, actor, and writer. Ferrell first established himself in the late 1990s as a cast member on the NBC sketch comedy show Saturday Night Live, and has subsequently starred in the comedy films Old School, Elf, Anchorman, Talladega...

 film Stranger than Fiction. It also appears on the the soundtrack of Martin Scorsese

Martin Scorsese

Martin Charles Scorsese is an American film director, screenwriter, producer, actor, and film historian. In 1990 he founded The Film Foundation, a nonprofit organization dedicated to film preservation, and in 2007 he founded the World Cinema Foundation...

's 2010 film, Shutter Island. It was also mixed with Dinah Washington

Dinah Washington

Dinah Washington, born Ruth Lee Jones , was an American blues, R&B and jazz singer. She has been cited as "the most popular black female recording artist of the '50s", and called "The Queen of the Blues"...

's vocal from her 1960 hit "This Bitter Earth

This Bitter Earth

"This Bitter Earth" is a 1960 song made famous by rhythm and blues singer Dinah Washington. Written and produced by Clyde Otis, it topped the U.S. R&B charts for the week of 25 July 1960 and also reached #24 on the U.S. pop charts...

" for the same movie and soundtrack. On 10 June 2010, the song was used on "So You Think You Can Dance

So You Think You Can Dance (U.S. TV series)

So You Think You Can Dance is an American dance competition and reality show that airs on Fox in the United States.The series first premiered on July 20, 2005, and was created by American Idol producers Simon Fuller and Nigel Lythgoe and is produced by 19 Entertainment and Dick Clark Productions...

," in a routine choreographed by Mia Michaels

Mia Michaels

Mia Michaels is an American choreographer best known for her judging and contemporary choreography on the TV show So You Think You Can Dance . She has worked with musical artists such as Celine Dion, Madonna, Tom Cruise, Ricky Martin, Gloria Estefan, and Prince...

. In addition, "Shadow Journal" and "Organum" were both included in the soundtrack of the Ari Folman

Ari Folman

Ari Folman is an Israeli film director, screenwriter and film score composer.-Biography:Ari Folman was born in Haifa to Holocaust survivors. His wife is also a film director...

 film "Waltz With Bashir

Waltz with Bashir

Waltz with Bashir is a 2008 Israeli animated documentary film written and directed by Ari Folman. It depicts Folman in search of his lost memories from the 1982 Lebanon War....

." The film's original score was composed by Richter.

Track listing

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

• All songs composed by Max Richter

Release history

Country	Date
United Kingdom United Kingdom The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...	26 February 2004
United States United States The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...	18 May 2004

External links

• The Blue Notebooks at Fat Cat