Many writers find listening to music helps them focus on the project at hand and can even provide inspiration. At Writer’s Relief, some of our favorite music to write by is classical music. Since most classical music is instrumental, you won’t find yourself distracted by any lyrics—or tempted to sing along! And if you think classical music means only the traditional, well-known pieces by Beethoven, Mozart, and their cohorts, think again. We’ve donned our headphones to create a classical music playlist that features some unexpected modern pieces along with a few of the more familiar works.
All of these forty-five tunes are available online and on Spotify, and we’ve included the links for you.
Classical Music Playlist For Writers
“Milk” – Henri Bardot
“By Night” – Sophie Hutchings
“Sophia La Notte (Night Breaths)” – Fabrizio Paterlini
“Comptine d’un autre été, l’après-midi” – Yann Tiersen
“Home” – Stefano Guzzetti
“Carousel #3” – Federico Albanese
“Where’s My Love (Piano Solo)” – SYML
“For Stormboy” – Rhiannon Bannenberg
“River” – Rob Costlow
“Début” – Mélanie Laurent
“Chasing Stars” – Moux
“Flight” – Johannes Bornlöf
“Georgia On My Mind” – Clark Younger
“Dismantle” – Peter Sandberg
“Summer Waltz/The Drive” – Dustin O’Halloran
“When All Else Fades” – Sam Eber
“Resolve” – Poppy Ackroyd
“Chopin Nocturne No. 20 In C-Sharp Minor” – Frédéric Chopin, Mikhail Pletnev
“If You Came Here To Live (In Memory of Mary Skinner)” – Alex Kozobolis, Harry Edwards
“Partly Cloudy” – Silver Maple
“Emptiness” – Sigimund
“Mrs. Smith” – Rebour
“Alone” – Stefano Guzzetti
“Storms” – Nick Box
“Départ” – Samuel Félix
“Cello Suite No.1 In G Major, BWV 1007: 1. Prelude” – Johann Sebastian Bach, Samantha Wells
“they sink” – Ólafur Arnalds
“Whisper To Closeness” – Sophie Hutchings
“sans titre (andante)” – Jean-Michel Blais
“Once I Loved” – Izumi Tanaka
“Hidden Road” – Elba
“Woods Of Chaos” – Rob Costlow
“Together We Will Live Forever” – Clint Mansell
“Piano Sonata No. 14 In C-Sharp Minor” – Ludwig van Beethoven, Louis Lortie
“Atlantico” – Roberto Cacciapaglia
“Hallelujah” – Leonard Cohen, Sheku Kanneh-Mason
“Week #4” – Fabrizio Paterlini
“Gnossienne No. 1” – Erik Satie, Alena Cherny
“Escape Artist” – Zoë Keating
“Vals De Rodrigues” – Eric Badanti
“Prozatím” – Zuzana Kudová
“Der Vogel Auf Dem Felsen” – Wolfgang Schulmann
“La Storia” – Alexander Descartes
“Grace” – Saeko Seki
“Scarborough Fair” – arr. Parkin, Sheku Kanneh-Mason
Question: What are some of your favorite songs to listen to while you write?
I listen to classical music all day long, not just when I’m writing. If more people (not just writers) did that, we’d have a more peaceful world. In Buffalo we have a 24-hour classical music FM station (WNED-FM) that is (obviously) available all day & night. It’s on when I write, when I’m e-mailing, when I eat, shower, even when the TV is on. When the Met Opera is broadcast on Saturday afternoons, I get out my piano-vocal score of the opera and follow it (obviously not writing at the same time). If more people listened to classical music instead of the shit that most stations put out, we’d have a more intelligent population and a more peaceful world.