Playlist - Music from Madeleine Thien's "Do Not Say We Have Nothing"

Music is at the heart of Scotiabank Giller Prize Winner Do Not Say We Have Nothing by Madeleine Thien.

Update Dec 2021: The embed link for the playlist seems to be broken, here is the link to the playlist on YouTube

To be honest, I actually didn't like this book that much, which I know is crazy given that it was also shortlisted for the 2016 Man Booker Prize, as well as Winner of the GG80. There are quite a few quotes I enjoyed, but altogether it just didn't really do it for me.

"Zhuli was in Room 103, following the magisterial Prokofiev up his porcelain staircases, when Kai entered without knocking. She ignored him: Prokofiev required all her concentration. Every measure brought her closer to the disgraced Russian, who had been accused by Stalin of formalism, his major compositions banned; yet in this room, Prokofiev was becoming flesh and blood while Zhuli herself was vanishing. From eighths to sixteenths then three times as fast, the notes chipped into one another, every note had to touch the air, make its singular gesture, and elaborate this unending melody."

p.199

Something I did really appreciate about it is all of the music she mentions. Our protagonists are all musicians, and so in mentioning all the different symphonies, concertos, etc, Thien gives her book its very own soundtrack.

Above: Glenn Gould, who, like Thien, was also Canadian!

I made a playlist of some of the songs Thien mentions in the book. I confess I'm an ignorant listener so listen with a grain of salt if you will- the specific recordings I have put here on this YouTube playlist were pretty much chosen at random, except for the one with Glenn Gould, who is mentioned very frequently throughout the book. 

"A musical idea had appeared into his thoughts, a wedge of notes. He must hurry home to write the phrases down. Chords opened, they made a bright uneasiness in his ears. He was suddenly engulfed by the crowd at the intersection and tried, stubbornly, to hear only the unfolding music."

p.238

For Track List below, I didn't place the individual pieces in any particular order as I usually do with my playlists. I write out the music and composers here so you can try out different recordings of the music. 

Also, there are some instances like with Bach's Goldberg Variations where I didn't choose all of the, um, Variations, just parts they mention, whereas you might like to listen to the whole thing (which is over an hour long). 

"She did not want to hear a violin and so the record she put on was Bach. She wanted to walk slowly, there was no longer any need to rush. Time extended inside Bach, there were repetitions and canons, there were circles and spirals, there were many voices and honest humility as if he knew that reincarnation and loss were inseparable. The music no longer seemed to come from the record player, but from some chamber of her memory."

p.270

Track List

1. Violin Sonata No. 2 by Prokofiev
2. Tzigane by Ravel
3. Goldberg Variations No. 21 by Bach
4. Piano Concerto No.9 by Mozart
5. Caprice by Paganini
6. Opening Aria from Xerxes by Handel
7. Sonata No. 4 by Bach
8. Symphony No.5 by Shostakovich (playlist just has the finale, book refers to the whole thing)
9. Piano Concerto No.5 by Beethoven
10. Sonata in D Minor by Scarlatti
11. Violin Concerto in D Major by Tchaikovsky 

"The first aria of the Goldberg Variations was also its end. Could it be that everything in this life had been written from the beginning?"

p.271

You might also like my playlist Songs Without Vocals.