I was fourteen and engrossed in a novel in my room while my old gramophone was playing music in the background. Enemies near, the hero was searching for a wounded friend along a subterranean lake set in the middle of a vast, gloomy cavern. The end of the second movement of Tchaikovsky’s Piano Concerto No.1 reflected the atmosphere perfectly. But then... a terrifying dinosaur erupted from the water with a roar and, in perfect synchrony, the last movement began. With a bang!! I jumped out of my skin! Grinning, I then waited for my heart rate to recover.
AWE completed,
I compiled this playlist with an affectionate smile. I selected a number of recordings to play (stream) while reading. One track per chapter. Except for Mozart’s entire Requiem, which was added at the end for good measure.
These include works by J.S. Bach, Brahms, Bruch, Busoni, Dvořák, Hasegawa, Rachmaninov, Sibelius, Stravinsky, Vivaldi, and many others. The entire playlist consists of eighty-two tracks. If you enjoy background music, play these as you read AWE. The length of each track matches an average reading speed of about 238 words/minute.
A speed-reader? You can either wait for a track to stop before beginning the next chapter, or click the [Next] button to advance to the next track. Otherwise, you can use the [Pause] button at the end of a stream. In any case, I fervently hope you will enjoy these performances.
You are invited to visit https://www.classicalarchives.com/AWE — There you will be able to get a 14-dayfree trial subscription to Classical Archives so you may enjoy the playlist in full (and, of course, anything else you wish to listen to on the Archives).
Classical Archives subscribers, go straight to the AWE Playlist. Happy reading and listening! (Due to possible album take-downs, the playlist is not set in stone and is subject to change.)