Video from MaxRichterMusic
Max Richter: On The Nature Of Daylight (Entropy) Taken from ‘The Blue Notebooks’ (2018) – new recording
Max Richter was born in March 1966 in Germany. Max Richter’s is known for his post-minimalist compositions and for his work composing for a variety of films and television shows including Black Mirror and Arrival. He studied composition and piano at the University of Edinburgh, the Royal Academy of Music, and under Luciano Berio in Florence. He founded the ensemble Piano Circus. In 2003, he began composing for feature films and television shows. He has won several awards for his composing including the 2016 Evening Standard British Film Award for his work on Arrival and a 2014 Hollywood Music in Media Award for his work on The Leftovers .
This composition was for the movie Arrival.
The paradox of writing about music is that you’re trying to describe something transcendent using human language which is not transcendent. There is something spiritual about music and the right song can literally change your reality. Singing was first articulated by another category of creatures, Angels in Job 38:7 7 when the morning stars sang together
and all the sons of God shouted for joy? They at that time, which was actually outside of time they had a language of some sort and were singing. God gifted humans with the ability to compose, write and sing and play music. Music has qualities which are abstract like math, qualities that are caught up in each individuals expression of Being in the world. Just as you may see a color different than I would, this is called qualia, you may hear music differently as well.
Music is therapy for many people. I have used it during times of sickness from cancer treatments and continue to use it to cope with long term side effects of depression. In a magnificent essay titled “The Rest Is Silence” Aldous Huxley (July, 26 1894–November 22, 1963) writes:
“From pure sensation to the intuition of beauty, from pleasure and pain to love and the mystical ecstasy and death — all the things that are fundamental, all the things that, to the human spirit, are most profoundly significant, can only be experienced, not expressed. The rest is always and everywhere silence. After silence that which comes nearest to expressing the inexpressible is music.”
Another observation:
“Silence is an integral part of all good music. Compared with Beethoven’s or Mozart’s, the ceaseless torrent of Wagner’s music is very poor in silence. Perhaps that is one of the reasons why it seems so much less significant than theirs. It “says” less because it is always speaking.”
Huxley recognizes that music helps in expressing the inexpressible.
Huxley believed no other art swings open the gates of reception more powerfully than music. Like many things in God's creation the language in which it communicates to us is a hidden, genuine reality that is ultimately untranslatable into our ordinary language:
“Music “says” things about the world in musical terms. The truth and beauty contained in a piece of music is beyond our cognitive skills to grasp; for it is a beauty-truth and inseparable from its creator. Enjoy this magnificent composition from Max Richter.
Website; maxrichtermusic.com