While writing this book, I kept a running list in Scrivener of the songs and pieces I referenced, and then made a YouTube playlist too (not Spotify bc it's missing a lot of these older, historical songs). I would sometimes play through the list as I was revising, just to make sure I got everything right when I was describing them, or just to be immersed in that particular soundtrack. So I've decided to share the playlist (link to the YouTube list in bio!). There are a few pieces here that are never mentioned in the book by name but are the ones I was thinking of when writing the passages (because I needed specificity to imagine things accurately!). I'll leave it to those of you who care to find the corresponding passages.

HAIWEN & SUCHI'S PLAYLIST

Violin Concerto in A Major — Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
Goodbye My Love — Teresa Teng
茉莉花 (Jasmine) — Chinese folk song
Méditation — Jules Massenet
Someone to Watch Over Me — Ella Fitzgerald
Symphony No. 1 in C Minor (Second Movement) — Johannes Brahms
Double Violin Concerto in D Minor — J.S. Bach
Violin Concerto in E Minor, Op. 64 — Felix Mendelssohn
String Quartet No. 15 in A Minor (Third Movement) — Ludwig von Beethoven
Violin Concerto — Jean Sibelius
戀之火 (The Fire of Love) — Bai Guang
東亞民族進行曲 (East Asia Peoples’ March) — Chiang Wen-Yeh
Spring Sonata (Violin Sonata No. 5) — Ludwig von Beethoven
可愛女人 (Cute Girl) — Jay Chou
最後的戰役 (The Last Battle) — Jay Chou
24 Caprices, Op. 1: No. 5 in A Minor — Niccolò Paginini
相思夢 (Lovesick Dream) — Yao Lee
玫瑰玫瑰我愛你 (Rose, Rose I Love You) — Yao Lee (written by Chen Gexin)
The Ding Dong Song / 第二春 — Tsai Chin / Yao Min
蔣公紀念歌 (Chiang Kai-shek Memorial Song) — Chin Hsiao-I and Hwang Yau-tai
Nearer, My God, to Thee (更加與主接近) — Eliza Flower
Piano Sonata No. 2 (Funeral March) — Frederic Chopin
Mourning Songs for Chiang Kai-shek
關仔嶺之戀 — 吳晉淮
Colours of the Rainbow — Judi Jim 重錄版
Violin Concerto No. 1 in D major, Op. 19 (Scherzo: Vivacissimo) — Sergei Prokofiev


One thing I wanted to note bc I have nowhere else to put this tidbit:

So the Brahms Symphony in C 2nd movement is one of my favorite pieces of all time -- the first time I *really* listened to it, it almost made me weep. So I threw it into my book because I wanted Haiwen to have a connection to the piece that I loved.

Then, as I was doing more research about music at the time, I learned that the Brahms Symphony was the last piece the Shanghai Municipal Orchestra played before it was reorganized into a new orchestra controlled by the Japanese. It was the final performance conducted by the renowned Maestro Paci, who stepped down from the orchestra (and was previously interrogated and imprisoned) because he refused to work with the Japanese. It was considered the end of an era.

This felt so serendipitous -- and in fact, in an earlier draft, Haiwen recalls a memory of seeing the orchestra for the first and last time as a young boy and hearing this symphony and knowing then that he would commit his life to making music. Alas, the scene didn't fit with the book and I took it out, along w this detail, but I still hold on to it as something that felt remarkable. It made me feel like, somehow, I was meant to write this book.

Anyway hope you enjoy listening to the music!