Hear 2.5 Hours of the Classical Music in Haruki Murakami’s Novels: Liszt, Beethoven, Janáček, and Extra

Haru­ki Murakami’s hit nov­el 1Q84 fea­tures a mem­o­rable scene in a taxi­cab on a grid­locked free­method whose radio is play­ing Leoš Janáček’s Sin­foni­et­ta. “It’s, because the ebook sug­gests, tru­ly the worst pos­si­ble music for a traf­fic jam,” writes Sam Ander­son in a New York Occasions Magazine­a­zine professional­file of the nov­el­ist: “busy, upbeat, dra­mat­ic — like 5 nor­mal songs struggle­ing for suprema­cy inside an emp­ty paint can.” Muraka­mi tells Ander­son that he “selected the Sin­foni­et­ta as a result of that isn’t a pop­u­lar music in any respect. However after I pub­lished this ebook, the music grew to become pop­u­lar on this coun­strive… Mr. Sei­ji Oza­wa thanked me. His document has bought properly.”

In addi­tion to being a world-famous con­duc­tor, the late Oza­wa was additionally, because it hap­pens, a per­son­al pal of Murakami’s; the 2 even pub­lished a ebook, Absolute­ly on Music, that tran­scribes a sequence of their con­ver­sa­tions concerning the for­mer’s voca­tion and the lat­ter’s avo­ca­tion, a dis­tinc­tion with an unclear sure­ary in Murakami’s case.

“I’ve plenty of buddies who love music, however Haru­ki takes it method past the bounds of san­i­ty,” writes Oza­wa, and certainly, Muraka­mi has all the time made music part of his work, each in his technique of cre­at­ing it and in its very con­tent. His books provide numer­ous ref­er­ences to West­ern pop (espe­cial­ly of the 9­teen-six­ties), jazz, and likewise clas­si­cal document­ings — fif­teen of which you’ll be able to hear in the video from NTS radio above.

We’ve pre­vi­ous­ly fea­tured NTS, the Lon­don-based on-line radio sta­tion recognized for its deep dives on themes from spir­i­tu­al jazz to Hunter S. Thomp­son, for its “Haru­ki Muraka­mi Day” broad­solid of music from his nov­els. Open­ing with Le mal du pays from Franz Liszt’s Années de pèleri­nage, the NTS Information to Clas­si­cal Music from Muraka­mi Nov­els con­tin­ues on to “Vogel als Prophet” from Robert Schu­man­n’s Wald­szenen, and there­after consists of  Beethoven’s Sym­pho­ny No. 7 In A Main, Mendelssohn’s Cleve­land Quar­tet, Wag­n­er’s Der Fliegende Hol­län­der, and far else apart from. You might not have the ability to recall the place you’ve seen all of those items males­tioned in Murakami’s work instantly, however you’ll positive­ly rec­og­nize the Sin­foni­et­ta the second it comes alongside.

Relat­ed con­tent:

Haru­ki Murakami’s Pas­sion for Jazz: Dis­cov­er the Novelist’s Jazz Playlist, Jazz Essay & Jazz Bar

A 96-Track Playlist of Music in Haru­ki Murakami’s Nov­els: Miles Davis, Glenn Gould, the Seashore Boys & Extra

A 3,350-Track Playlist of Music from Haru­ki Murakami’s Per­son­al Report Col­lec­tion

A 26-Hour Playlist Fea­tur­ing Music from Haru­ki Murakami’s Lat­est Nov­el, Killing Com­menda­tore

Haru­ki Muraka­mi Day: Stream Sev­en Hours of Combine­es Col­lect­ing All of the Jazz, Clas­si­cal & Clas­sic Amer­i­can Pop Music from His Nov­els

Primarily based in Seoul, Col­in Marshall writes and broad­casts on cities, lan­guage, and cul­ture. His tasks embody the Sub­stack newslet­ter Books on Cities and the ebook The State­much less Metropolis: a Stroll by Twenty first-Cen­tu­ry Los Ange­les. Fol­low him on Twit­ter at @colinmarshall or on Face­ebook.