Perhaps as beautiful a piece of music as has been recorded this decade, this centerpiece from Max Richter’s modern classical masterpiece The Blue Notebooks  homage to an era when people who made music could read and write it too.

Max Richter – On the Nature of Daylight 6:11 mins/ 192 kbps/ 8.5MB

Introduced with an excerpt of actress Tilda Swindon reading from Franz Kafka’s “The Blue Octavo Notebooks”, part of a series of literary interludes that punctuate the album, Shadow Journal applies a more modern production style than the above, laying a rich texture and pulsing sub bass under a subtle arrangement of traditional strings. The deep and dramatic result makes for an authentic accompaniment to Kafka’s diaries.

Max Richter – Shadow Journal 8:22 mins/ 192 kbps/ 11.4MB