A Beautiful Mind [James Horner]

When it comes to music... real music... you know... the one you play when you're lying on your bed and enjoying a relaxed afternoon or a soft early morning... or a semi-alcoholized late evening... I choose soundtracks!

How many times have you seen a movie and asked yourself what it would be like if it didn't have a soundtrack?! Or maybe you wondered what it would be like if the book you're reading had one... I must say that I can't imagine myself watching a movie without music. Luckily music is all around us so I won't have to find out. :) And yes, the books with soundtracks really do sound great. For example, I've read J. R. R. Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings while listening to the soundtracks. I must admit it was a truly wonderful experience. Will repeat it sometime soon. Maybe with the Harry Potters.

I find it funny how music can evoke a scene or even a complete story. Guess it's the magic that music holds, that one thing that makes it so special. Someone once said: "Music is what feelings sound like." and I couldn't agree more. That's why soundtracks make an important part of each movie, they give it the 'heart' touch to it...

Today I opened my Spotify soundtracks playlist and found James Horner's Original Motion Picture Soundtrack from the movie A Beautiful Mind. As an easy monday afternoon, I decided to go for it and share with you one of my personal favorite soundtracks of all times. A Kaleidoscope of Mathematics is beautiful... strong... sensitive... intelligent... emotional... divine... It's a journey throughout history and time, mathematical universes and the intimate corners of our beautiful minds.

Please, do turn your lights off, lie on your beds and try to feel this one, because it really is worth of it.

Haruki Murakami - 1Q84 (part I)

I've always liked Murakami's musical taste. Through the choices he makes when it comes to putting the soundtracks to the moments in his books, you can see that music has a special meaning for him. A wide range of musical pieces color his books and give them a true intimate touch. 

After reading a few of his books, I decided to research and learn more about his life. And then it all came into place. Murakami-music-puzzle-solved! He always appreciated quality music, mostly jazz, and actually owned a small jazz bar in Tokyo for a couple of years. I guess that's why his musical choices are always the refreshing ones.

For those of you who don't know him, Haruki Murakami is a japanese novelist. Some of the critics even regard him as the creator of a whole new movement in postmodern literature. Sputnik Sweetheart; Norwegian Wood; Dance, dance, dance are some of Murakami's most recognized novels.

I would like to dedicate this post to his latest novel and its musical background. 1Q84 is truly a special and, if I may dare say, Murakami's best novel. It's a different world. A 1Q84 world, a world with two Moons, "Little People", love, crime, pleasure, guilt, secrets, punishment, destinies beautifully mingled... A story so well told that you're not able to think of anything else!

Please follow me on this musical journey.

It is the Leoš Janáček's Sinfonietta that helps us move and actually get into the story, maybe even sense the weirdness of the events that are about to happen.

Then we simply move to something completely different. A sound coming from a standing car. Michael Jackson and Billie Jean.

She was more like a beauty queen from a movie scene... ;) 

That's what I liked so much about Murakami's music, it's like the wind that brings different sounds from different parts of the history. Now we move to 1720's Germany and Johann Sebastian Bach and The Well-Tempered Clavier. Here I chose my personal favorite.

I simply love these changes. Nat King Cole and Sweet Lorraine.

It is only a paper moon

hanging over a cardboard sea

but it wouldn't be make believe

if you believed in me....

Another fascinating choice.



I chose the next two songs. Guess the moment didn't require any particular song, just the poppy sound. ;) The Queen. ABBA.

Another amazing leap into the history. Another choice of mine. Georg Friedrich Händel and the Sonata for the Recorder and Harpsichord in C Major HWV 365

J. S. Bach and St. Matthew Passion BWV 244

We're off to England, year 1596. John Dowland and Lachrimae Pavane (Flow my tears).

And the last musical episode in the first book of the 1Q84 trilogy is Joseph Haydn and his Cello Concerto No. 1 in C major, Hob. VIIa/1 (ca. 1765)

I really do hope you enjoyed this one.
I did. A lot.

(to be continued...)