From the programme
On the Nature of Daylight
String quintet, from the film Hamnet 5′
Composed in 2004 for The Blue Notebooks, Richter's slow-building lament for strings has become modern music's signature elegy, heard in Arrival, Shutter Island and now Chloé Zhao's Hamnet, which Richter scored. Zhao chose it for the film's devastating final scene at the Globe Theatre, where Agnes watches Hamlet performed. Over a patient ground of cellos, the violins rise in overlapping waves of almost unbearable consolation.
Hear It Now · performed by Max Richter, official recording
Inside the Music · Max Richter on the piece, Deutsche Grammophon
Performed by EunChe Kim · Nathan Meltzer · Oszkár Varga · Patrick Moriarty · Christopher Ellis
On the Nature of Daylight © 2004 Max Richter. The work is published by
Decca Publishing, and Richter’s own recordings of it appear on
Deutsche Grammophon. The performance heard on the home page of this site is our own.
Hear it live at Session 3, Sunday 16 August 2026, Halla Le Chéile →
