The Blue Notebooks

Composer Max Richter releases a 20th anniversary digital deluxe version as well as an exclusive vinyl edition of his 2004 album The Blue Notebooks. The work, composed in 2003, takes its name from a collection of writings by Kafka entitled “The Blue Octavo Notebooks”. In 2023, Richter performed the whole album front to back at Glastonbury Festival, together with his string ensemble as well as Oscar winner Tilda Swinton. There, the composer stated: “The album is some kind of protest record, a response to what was happening in politics around the build-up to the Iraq war, when I was struck with doubt about what was happening. I thought of Kafka, the patron saint of doubt, and I thought about making a piece which expressed everything, and so we recorded it.”  

The work features all tracks of the 15th anniversary deluxe edition from 2018, including the This Bitter Earth/On the Nature of Daylight mashup that is now released on vinyl for the first time. Further, a recently released brand-new solo piano version of On the Nature of Daylight is included in both the exclusive vinyl edition as well as the digital version. The physical album is only available in a limited and exclusive hand numbered edition and consists of two crystal clear vinyls in a re-designed blue case with a booklet, an art card and pictures of his 2023 Glastonbury performance.