Imaginary

Fictional Narratives

Monasticism, such as it existed in Spain, and such as it still exists in Thibet, is a sort of phthisis for civilization. It stops life short. It simply depopulates. Claustration, castration. It has been the scourge of Europe. Add to this the violence so often done to the conscience, the forced vocations, feudalism bolstered up by the cloister, the right of the first-born pouring the excess of the family into monasticism, the ferocities of which we have just spoken, the _in pace_, the closed mouths, the walled-up brains, so many unfortunate minds placed in the dungeon of eternal vows, the taking of the habit, the interment of living souls. Add individual tortures to national degradations, and, whoever you may be, you will shudder before the frock and the veil,--those two winding-sheets of human devising. Nevertheless, at certain points and in certain places, in spite of philosophy, in spite of progress, the spirit of the cloister persists in the midst of the nineteenth century, and a singular ascetic recrudescence is, at this moment, astonishing the civilized world. The obstinacy of antiquated institutions in perpetuating themselves resembles the stubbornness of the rancid perfume which should claim our hair, the pretensions of the spoiled fish which should persist in being eaten, the persecution of the child's garment which should insist on clothing the man, the tenderness of corpses which should return to embrace the living.  "Ingrates!" says the garment, "I protected you in inclement weather. Why will you have nothing to do with me?" "I have just come from the deep sea," says the fish. "I have been a rose," says the perfume. "I have loved you," says the corpse. "I have civilized you," says the convent.  To this there is but one reply: "In former days."  To dream of the indefinite prolongation of defunct things, and of the government of men by embalming, to restore dogmas in a bad condition, to regild shrines, to patch up cloisters, to rebless reliquaries, to refurnish superstitions, to revictual fanaticisms, to put new handles on holy water brushes and militarism, to reconstitute monasticism and militarism, to believe in the salvation of society by the multiplication of parasites, to force the past on the present,--this seems strange. Still, there are theorists who hold such theories. These theorists, who are in other respects people of intelligence, have a very simple process; they apply to the past a glazing which they call social order, divine right, morality, family, the respect of elders, antique authority, sacred tradition, legitimacy, religion; and they go about shouting, "Look! take this, honest people." This logic was known to the ancients. The soothsayers practise it. They rubbed a black heifer over with chalk, and said, "She is white, _Bos cretatus_."  As for us, we respect the past here and there, and we spare it, above all, provided that it consents to be dead. If it insists on being alive, we attack it, and we try to kill it.  Superstitions, bigotries, affected devotion, prejudices, those forms, all forms as they are, are tenacious of life; they have teeth and nails in their smoke, and they must be clasped close, body to body, and war must be made on them, and that without truce; for it is one of the fatalities of humanity to be condemned to eternal combat with phantoms. It is difficult to seize darkness by the throat, and to hurl it to the earth. [Victor Hugo, Les Misérables (1862), Volume II – Cosette; Book Seventh – Parenthesis, Chapter III, “On What Conditions One Can Respect the Past”.]

Novels:

• Novuyo Rosa Tshuma, House of Stone: A Novel (W.W. Norton & Company, 2019): “Zamani, the narrator of Novuyo Rosa Tshuma’s remarkable first novel, ‘House of Stone,’ has a troubled relationship with the past. For him there is history, and then there is ‘hi-story,’ a subtle but important distinction for a man who wants more than the incomplete, fragmentary tale his uncle passed on to him before dying.”

• Téa Obreht, The Tiger’s Wife: A Novel (Random House, 2011): a tale of life in the Balkans, “a world . . . haunted by its past and struggling to sort out its future.”

Poetry

There by the window in the old house / Perched on the bluff, overlooking miles of valley, / My days of labor closed, sitting out life’s decline, / Day by day did I look in my memory, / As one who gazes in an enchantress’ crystal globe, / And I saw the figures of the past, / As if in a pageant glassed by a shining dream, / Move through the incredible sphere of time. / And I saw a man arise from the soil like a fabled giant / And throw himself over a deathless destiny, / Master of great armies, head of the republic, / Bringing together into a dithyramb of recreative song / The epic hopes of a people; / At the same time Vulcan of sovereign fires, / Where imperishable shields and swords were beaten out / From spirits tempered in heaven. / Look in the crystal! See how he hastens on / To the place where his path comes up to the path / Of a child of Plutarch and Shakespeare.

O Lincoln, actor indeed, playing well your part, / And Booth, who strode in a mimic play within the play, / Often and often I saw you, / As the cawing crows winged their way to the wood / Over my house-top at solemn sunsets, / There by my window, / Alone.

[Edgar Lee Masters, “William H. Herndon”]

Music: Composers, artists, and major works

Isaac Albéniz, Iberia, T. 105 (1909), presents reflections on the composer’s life and health, and a celebration of a region in the composer’s native country. “He conceived Iberia at a time when his health was already beginning to fail and did so, moreover, in an attempt to provide an answer to two specific questions: how to write an academic work in the manner of the great French composers who had left such a profound impression on him, autodidact that he was, and how to hymn a mythic Spain that he would never see again.” Top performances in the original form for solo piano (approx. 88-117’) are by Heisser in 1993, de Larrocha in 1962, de Larrocha in 1980, Orozco in 1992, Muraro in 1997, Hamelin in 2006, Goerner in 2022. Also available are an orchestral version, and a version arranged for three guitars.

As the new millennium approached in the late 1990s, jazz trumpeter and historian Wynton Marsalis conceived, recorded and released a series of albums in a series entitled “swinging into the 21st”. These works draw on jazz traditions, so that for Marsalis they represent a union with the past, a value he strongly champions as a leading advocate of music. I present seven of the albums here.

• “A Fiddler’s Tale” (1999) (68’): “Wynton responds to Stravinsky’s famous A SOLDIER’S STORY from the perspective of later twentieth century music, including but not limited to jazz.” It tells the story of a young artist who sells her soul to the devil (her record producer).
• Standard Time, Vol. 4: “Marsalis Plays Monk” (1999) (77’): “Just as Thelonious Monk remains the most modern of jazz composers some twenty years after his death, so Wynton found inspiration for playing his music in the groundbreaking, and still avant-garde, music that Louis Armstrong created with his 1927 and 1928 jazz orchestras.”
• “At the Octoroon Balls” (1999), “is inspired by the composer's early life in New Orleans. ‘A ball is a ritual and a dance,’ Marsalis explains. ‘Everybody was in their finest clothing. At the Octoroon Balls there was an interesting cross-section of life. People from different stratums of society came together in pursuit of pleasure and fulfillment. The music brought people together.'”
• “Sweet Release & Ghost Story” (1999) (60’): “Sweet Release” draws on Charles Mingus’ experiments with jazz ensembles; “Ghost Story” is about being haunted by a melody. “Written for Judith Jamison’s choreography for the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater, and performed by the Lincoln Center Jazz Orchestra, SWEET RELEASE tells the story of a man and a woman, represented by the trombone and trumpet, and the temptations that threaten their romance. GHOST STORY was written for a small ensemble – Ted Nash on reeds, Eric Lewis on piano, Carlito Henriquez or Rodney Whitaker on bass, and Jaz Sawyer on drums – to serve as a score for choreography by Zhong Mei Li.”
• Standard Time, Vol. 6: “Mr. Jelly Lord” (1999) (61’) is a tribute to Jelly Roll Morton. “Fifteen classic stomps and blues by Jelly Roll Morton, including “King Porter Stomp” and “The Pearls,” give Wynton the opportunity to demonstrate that the music of this New Orleans jazz pioneer remains as modern as tomorrow.”
• “Reeltime” (1999) (59’) is “based on a tragic incident in early 20th century American history”. “. . . Reeltime shows on the music molecular level, the dissolution at the edges of genre, style, and substance. Reeltime is a kind of Frankensteinian Pastoral, a series of rural vignettes smelling of dirt and sweat. It touches the fabric of the American South in music. Gospel, blues, New Orleans stomp, they are all threads in this socio-musical coat.”
• “The Marciac Suite” (2000) (77’) is dedicated to the Jazz in Marciac Festival in France, where Marsalis has taught and performed for many years. “A sonic photo album in 13 movements, all 12 keys, and four time signatures, this 76 minute suite is Wynton’s kaleidoscopic tribute to the beautiful medieval town of Marciac, France, and its August jazz festival in which he participates every year.”

Wynton Marsalis, “Soul Gestures in Southern Blue” series:

• “Thick in the South” (volume 1) (1991) (56’): “A blues cycle for quintet and sextet that, as Wynton says of the title track to THICK IN THE SOUTH, comprises ‘a condition, a location, an attitude, a pulchritudinous proposition, and an occurrence,’ SOUL GESTURES IN SOUTHERN BLUE ranges through the full glory of the blues tradition.”
• “Uptown Ruler” (volume 2) (1991) (53’), “uses blues ideas within other forms, working more with the blues mood.”
• “Levee Low Moan” (volume 3) (1991) (49’) “explores the different rhythms generated by the blues.” 

“España Eterna: Five Centuries of Music from Spain, 1200-1700” (2018) (551’) is an eleven-CD collection from Jordi Savall and his Hespèrion groups.

Other albums:

• Apollo’s Fire, “Sugarloaf Mountain: An Appalachian Gathering” (2015) (69’) presents a collection of songs, played on Baroque instruments, which made their way to the United States and served as foundations for Appalachian music.
• Bob Berg, “Another Standard” (1996) (57’): “Berg is a devout and thoroughgoing Coltraneian.”
• James Carter, “Conversin’ with the Elders” (1996) (62’): “The brilliant saxophonist James Carter and his quartet . . . welcome some of Carter's musical heroes as guests . . .”
• In her presentation of Byzantine hymns (62’), Nektaria Karantzi poignantly pays homage to a religious tradition, and to the culture in which it arose.
• Kenny Garrett, “Sounds from the Ancestors” (2021) (68’): “From the Motown and gospel music he was weaned on as a youth growing up in Detroit, to the the hard bop of Blakey and post-bop of John Coltrane , Garrett wears his influences proudly on his sleeve on this energetic set. But the ancestors of the title refers more to Garrett's African forbearers and the deepest roots of all. It is pan-African rhythms, above all else, that permeate this music.”
• Peggy Seeger, “First Farewell” (2021) (31’), “expresses Peggy’s indefatigable optimism, inquisitiveness and sheer lust for life. A deep love runs through it from start to finish, leavened with a healthy dose of wry self-knowledge.”
• Rona Nishliu Quartet, “Me Motive Tonat” (2015) (44’) and “Mindil” (2019) (36’): these two albums “both represent a long cycle of research and transformation that she applied to the classics of Albanian music – ancient songs dating back to the late 14th century.”
• Zarina Prvasevda, “Eho” (Echo) (2022) (56’): “She says that she draws her inspiration from nature, from the daily life of ancient people throughout history, compared to what we live today, from the current cultural and emotional evolution, as well as from the characteristic features of the cultures of the people she is interested in. and constantly researches.”
• Karen Walwyn, “Florence B. Price” (2022) (59’) is a disc of solo piano music composed by an African-American woman. The music embraces Price’s and Walwyn’s roots, with quiet dignity and joy.
• Soema Montenegro, “Circulo Radiante” (2023) (33’) is “. . . an 'embrace of territory'; an encompassing sonic ode to Latin American sounds, landscapes, and people . . .”
• Georgia Sea Island Singers & Bessie Jones, “The Complete Friends of Old-Time Music Concert” (1965) (72’): “The Gullah Geechee people have deep connections to West Africa and their focus has often been on resistance to slavery and oppression . . .”

Compositions:

• Gerald Finzi, Cello Concerto, Op. 40 (1955) (approx. 37-41’), traces the composer’s mental journey after he was diagnosed with an incurable illness. The first movement (Allegro moderato) is filled with turmoil; the second (Andante quieto) is serene; the third (Rondo: Adagio – Allegro giocoso) is jocund.
• Gordon Getty, Ancestor Suite (2004) (approx. 33’): “is loosely based on Edgar Allen Poe’s The Fall of the House of Usher. Eddie Poe has arrived at Usher House to visit his old schoolchum Roderick Usher and his twin sister Madeline. A ball has been organized in his honor. The dancers are the spectral ancestors of the Usher line . . .”
• Le Jeu de Daniel (Ludus Danielis) (drama liturgique du XII Sicèle) () (approx. )
• Robert White, Lamentations de Jérémie (1500s) (approx. 18’): evocative choral music from the 16th century
• Leoš Janáček, Sinfonietta, JW VI/18 (1926) (approx. 22-24’) is “a celebration of everything Czech and perhaps, in some way, a self-portrait – in his own words, Janáček wished ‘to exalt the free Czech man in his beauty, joy and strength’.” Top recorded performances are by Czech Philharmonic Orchestra (Ančerl) in 1961, London Symphony Orchestra (Abbado) in 1969, Symphonieorchester des Bayerischen Rundfunks (Kubelik) in 1981, City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra (Rattle) in 1983, Czech Philharmonic Orchestra (Bělohlávek) in 1990, Czech Philharmonic Orchestra (Mackerras) in 2002, and Bamberg Symphony Orchestra (Nott) in 2006.
• Steven Mackey, Memoir, for percussion duo, string quartet, and narrator (2021) (approx. 75’) “is a 75-minute work for narrator, string quartet and percussion duo based on the unpublished memoir written by his mother — Elaine Mackey. Ms. Mackey bore witness to the tumultuous 20th Century - The Great Depression, WWII, while battling social anxiety, divorce, and alcoholism.”

Music: songs and other short pieces

• Nawang Khechog, “Journey with the Ancients”
• The Beatles, “In My Life” (lyrics)

Visual Arts

• Marc Chagall, The Tribe of Levi (1964)
• Diego Rivera, The History of Mexico (1929-35)
• Salvador Dali, Atavism at Twilight (1934)
• Salvador Dali, Atavism at Twilight (1933-34)
• Marc Chagall, The Green Violinist (1923)

Film and Stage

• Mother: about a difficult relationship
• Lady Bird: a high school senior struggles to free herself from a difficult home environment, and comes to realize that her family of origin provided her with many of her strengths.