Best Album to Read AS To

[Dglgmut]

For most of AS I was listening to this album as well as it's successor:

This is the track that played when Dagny came out of her crashed plane in Galt's Gulch:

I know Rand liked contemporary classical, like Rachmoninoff, but I think the first track I linked captures that blissfully productive spirit of her heroes better.

If you like reading to music, what album do you think suits Atlas Shrugged the best?

[syrakusos]

For me, it was Rachminoff's Second Piano Concerto. As you say, it is canonic. Having read that and the Fountainhead several times through, my opinion has not changed, though, admittedly I have not tried much outside of the Russian Romantics. Bach simply did not go well.

I do find it interesting that you assert "Best." I mean, what else have you tried?

[caroljane]

Reading Atlas Shrugged is a powerful experience, one I did not like, and the only soundtrack I can think of that associates is Strauss, Also Sprach Zarathustra.

[Dglgmut]

I do find it interesting that you assert "Best." I mean, what else have you tried?

I just meant that in this thread it is open for debate as to which album is best for reading AS to. I wasn't claiming the album(s) I mentioned were necessarily the best.

I still think that electronic music likely suits the deification of the world's prime movers more so than that epic symphonic stuff.

Minimal, repetitious music (with a sort of uplifting, worry-free quality) captures a sense of resilience that fits Rand's heroes well. Plus, the minimalism makes it easier to concentrate.

[Xray]

I can't answer this because I wouldn't want to listen to any music when reading fiction.

[PDS]

I can't answer this because I wouldn't want to listen to any kind of music when reading fiction.

But Xray, you did answer...

I happened to be listening to Asia's "Only Time Will Tell," when I first read Atlas Shrugged, a song and album with the following apt lines:

You're leaving now

It's in your eyes

There's no disguising it

It really comes as no surprise

To find that you planned it all along

I see it now

Becomes so clear

Your insincerity

And me all starry-eyed

You'd think that I would have known by now

Now, sure as the sun will cross the sky

The lie is over

Lost, like the tears that used to tide me over

Mark Twain (or Carl Jung) would call this synchronicity.

[Reidy]

If you read and listen at the same time you aren't doing justice to either.