Imaginary

Fictional Narratives

Joyful remembrances:

• Kathryn Forbes, Mama's Bank Account (Harcourt, Brace and Company, 1943).
• Frank B. Gilbreth, Jr., and Ernestine Gilbreth Carey, Cheaper by the Dozen (T.Y. Crowell Co., 1948).

Regretful remembrances:

• Julian Barnes, The Sense of an Ending (Alfred A. Knopf, 2011): "a mystery of memory and missed opportunity."

Poignant remembrances:

• Tom Barbash, The Dakota Winters: A Novel (Ecco, 2018): “ . . . Barbash has vividly captured the end times feeling of this period in America and has populated his sad and funny tale with a highly engaging mix of real people and fictional characters who take us to its ordained and dreaded finale, Lennon’s death.”
• Niall Williams, This Is Happiness: A Novel (Bloomsbury Publishing, 2019): “. . . as full of detours and backward glances as it is of forward motion and — as befits a novel narrated by an old man who comments that ‘as you get toward the end, you revisit the beginning’ — is centrally preoccupied with time itself.”
• Salar Abdoh, Out of Mesopotamia: A Novel (Akashic, 2020): “Saleh, the protagonist, is a journalist embedded with the Iranian-backed militias that have fought against the Islamic State for the better part of a decade. Early on in his story, which toggles between the battlefield and the home front, Saleh finds a volume of Proust’s masterwork, left by a fighter in a ruined building. This text underpins Abdoh’s novel, which is as much a meditation on time and memory as it is a book about war.”
• Charmaine Wilkerson, Black Cake: A Novel (Ballantine Books, 2022): a woman leaves a note in her freezer, for her adult children, next to a piece of her black cake. The note says, “‘I want you to sit down together and share the cake when the time is right. You’ll know when.'”

Transformative remembrances:

• Bridget Collins, The Binding: A Novel (William Morrow/HarperCollins Publishers, 2019): “ . . . the experience of memory returning, a rush of recollection that can change the whole world, if only for one person at a time — or sometimes two.”

Poetry

During that summer
When unicorns were still possible;
When the purpose of knees 
Was to be skinned;
When shiny horse chestnuts
    (Hollowed out
    Fitted with straws
    Crammed with tobacco
    Stolen from butts
    In family ashtrays)
Were puffed in green lizard silence
While straddling thick branches
Far above and away
From the softening effects
Of civilization;

During that summer--
Which may never have been at all;
But which has become more real
Than the one that was--
Watermelons ruled.

Thick imperial slices 
Melting frigidly on sun-parched tongues
Dribbling from chins;
Leaving the best part,
The black bullet seeds,
To be spit out in rapid fire
Against the wall
Against the wind
Against each other;

And when the ammunition was spent,
There was always another bite:
It was a summer of limitless bites,
Of hungers quickly felt 
And quickly forgotten
With the next careless gorging.

The bites are fewer now.
Each one is savored lingeringly,
Swallowed reluctantly.

But in a jar put up by Felicity,
The summer which maybe never was
Has been captured and preserved.
And when we unscrew the lid
And slice off a piece
And let it linger on our tongue:
Unicorns become possible again.

[John Tobias, “Reflections On a Gift of Watermelon Pickle Received from a Friend Called Felicity”.]

Other poems:

• Sara Teasdale, “I Thought of You”
• Billy Collins, “Forgetfulness”
• Maya Angelou, “Remembrance”
• Edgar Lee Masters, “Hare Drummer”
• Seamus Heaney, “Casualty”
• Seamus Heaney, “Clearances”
• H. Lawrence, “Piano”

Music: Composers, artists, and major works

Franz Schubert composed his final three piano sonatas in the final month of his life, when he was only thirty-one years old. Pianist Paul Lewis observes that they express turbulence, nostalgia and acceptance.

• Piano Sonata No. 19 in C minor, D. 958 (1828) (approx. 30-35’) (recorded performances)
• Piano Sonata No. 20 in A Major, D. 959 (1828) (approx. 39-41’) (recorded performances)
• Piano Sonata No. 21 in B-flat Major, D. 960 (1828) (approx. 36-47’) (recorded performances)

Other compositions:

• Robert Schumann, Myrthen, Op. 25 (1840) (approx. 52-63’) (lyrics) (recorded performances), is a cycle of 26 songs, which he dedicated to his wife Clara.
• Franz Liszt, Bunte Reihe, Op. 30, S 484, R 149 (1840) (approx. 62’), is a cycle of 24 short piano pieces
• Paul Hindemith, When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom'd: (A Requiem for those we love) (1946) (approx. 60’) (lyrics), for mezzo-soprano and baritone soloists, chorus, and orchestra, based on the poem by Walt Whitman
• Each movement in Charles Ives, Holidays Symphony, New England Holidays (1919) (approx. 41’) is based on something of the memory that a man has of his boy holidays.
• Leoš Janáček, On an Overgrown Path (Po zarostlém chodníčku), JW8/17 (1908) (approx. 44’)
• Morton Feldman, Triadic Memories (1981) (approx. 60-95’)
• Wolfgang Rihm, ET LUX, for vocal ensemble and string quartet (2009) (approx. 62’): “Into this memory space, voices are prompted to enter, and what went before redefines itself . . .” (Paul Griffiths, from the liner notes to this album)
• Rued Langaard, Symphony No. 8, “Minder ved Amalienborg” (Memories at Amalienborg), BVN 193 (1926-1928, rev. 1929-1934) (approx. 18-21’)
• Mikhail Glinka, Souvenir d’une nuit d’été à Madrid (1851) (approx. 9-10’)
• Frederick Delius, Over the Hills and Far Away (1897) (approx. 13-14’)
• John Carbon, Time Out of Mind (2001) (approx. 8’)
• Tan Dun, Eight Memories in Watercolor, Op. 1 (1978, rev. 1982) (approx. 13-14’), and 2002 version (approx. 18’): “a diary of longing”
• Humiwo Hayasaka, Piano Concerto (1948) (approx. 33’) is an elegy for victims of World War II.
• Jesús Guridi, piano works: Homenaje a Walt Disney (1956) (approx. 22’); Ocho Apuentes (approx. 18’)
• Gustav Holst, A Somerset Rhapsody, Op. 21/2, H. 87 (1907) (approx. 9-10’)
• Philip Sainton, The Island (1939) (approx. 17’): the feeling in this tone poem is about memories stirred by a place, once visited.
• Patrick Hadley, The Trees So High, symphonic ballad for baritone, chorus & orchestra in A Minor (1931) (approx. 34’): about a young man’s life, cut short.
• Enrique Granados, Escenas románticas (Romantic Scenes) (1904) (approx. 21-26’)
• Jonathan Dove, The Passing of the Year (2000) (approx. 20’)
• Morten Lauridsen, Les Chansons des Roses (1993) (approx. 12’)
• Brian Fennelly, A Sprig of Andromeda (1992) (approx. 15’): the work is drawn from a letter by Louisa May Alcott on the death of Henry David Thoreau.
• Stephen Albert, Flower of the Mountain (1985) (approx. 16’): lying next to her husband, a woman remembers their youth together.
• Joly Braga Santos, Concerto for Strings in D Minor, "To the Chamber Music Academy" (1951) (approx. 19-20’): remembrance of happy and sad, good and bad, agitated and calm.
• Alfred Reed, Giligia (A Song of Remembrance) (1999) (approx. 7’)
• Raga Anandi Kalyan (Nand – Anandi – Nand Kalyan) is a Hindustani classical raag for late evening. Performances are by Rais Khan, Nikhil Banerjee and Kumar Gandharva.
• Paul Paccione, Book of Hours (2019) (approx. 25’)

Jazz and other popular albums:

• Jan Garbarek, Bill Connors, John Taylor and Jack DeJohnette, “Places” (1976) (49’)
• Andy Fusco, “Remembrance” (2020) (69’)
• Franz Koglmann, “The Use of Memory” (1989) (65’)
• Danny Grissett, “Remembrance” (2017) (55’)
• Yarina, “Remembrance” (1996) (42’)
• Lukas Huisman, “Finnissy: Gershwin Arrangements, More Gershwin” (2021) (80’)
• Alex Hahn, “Childhood Melodies” (2024) (34’)

New Age albums:

• George Winston, “Remembrance: A Memorial Benefit” (2001) (31’)
• Deuter, “East of the Full Moon” (2005) (65’)

Other albums:

• Various artists, “I Am of Ireland: Yeats in Song” (2021) (69’) – W.B. Yeats set to music by Raymond Driver
• Burd Ellen, “A Tarot of the Green Wood” (2022) (47’), “explores ideas of transmission, memory and hidden meaning.” “Something about Burd Ellen’s eerie take on drone-heavy, experimental folk is uniquely suited to the crepuscular nooks of the year, the times of seasonal change when the cast of a landscape changes almost imperceptibly or the quality of light shifts ever so slightly.” It gives the feeling of hazy memories of a long-distant past.
• Daoirí Farrell, “The Wedding Above in Glencree” (2023) (42’): “. . . the first (song) is the epic retelling of Father Murphy that digs deep into history and the rebellion of 1798 while One Starry Night is accompanied by a stark shruti/harmonium drone. The impact of Dublin’s An Góilin Traditional Singers club (with a mention in dispatches to the Munich Folk Club ) is evident again and reinforces the importance of these clubs in keeping traditional music alive and reinvigorated.”
• Tõnu Kaljuste, Estonian Philharmonic Chamber Choir & Tallinn Chamber Orchestra, “Reminiscentiae” (2023) (77’) (music of Veljo Tormis): “The elemental power of ancient folk music is the lifeforce that drives the compositions of Veljo Tormis (1930-2017).”
• Kady Diarra, “Burkina Hakili” (2021) (55’) “is a celebration of the music of Burkina Faso and its melting pot of cultures and languages” . . . and “a cornucopia of pleasures and wisdom, reflecting her life, her homeland (Burkina Faso), her region (West Africa) and her griot heritage”
• Ellie Wilson, “Memory Islands” (2023) (29’): “The music on the album - written for violin, hardanger fiddle and electronics - explores the strange landscape of memory and the spirit of place. The sound world a mixture of experimental soundscapes, drones, and contemporary classical but punctuated with melodic/folky lines on the violin.”
• Chick Corea & Béla Fleck, “Remembrance” (2024) (63’)
• Ryuichi Sakamoto, “Opus” (2024) (97’): “The final concert of the Japanese virtuoso is captured in an aching meditation on mortality and legacy.”

Music: songs and other short pieces

• Seals and Crofts, “We May Never Pass This Way Again” (lyrics)
• Mary Hopkin, “Those Were the Days, My Friend” (lyrics)
• Dan Fogelberg, “Same Old Lang Syne” (lyrics)
• Chad and Jeremy, “A Summer Song” (lyrics)
• Brothers 4, “Greenfields” (lyrics)
• Franz Schubert (composer), Andenken (Remembrance), D. 99 (1814) (lyrics)
• Franz Schubert (composer), Erinnerungen (Memories), D. 98 (1814) (lyrics)
• Franz Joseph Haydn (composer), “Recollection” (lyrics)
• Charles-Valentin Alkan, 48 Motifs (Equisses), “Ressouvenir”

Visual Arts

• Salvador Dali, The Hallucinogenic Toreador (1970)
• Norman Rockwell, Attic Memories (1925)
• Victor Borusov-Musatov, Requiem (1905)
• Wassily Kandinsky, Old Town II (1902)
• Gustav Klimt, Beech Grove I (1902)
• Vasily Perov, Old Parents Visiting the Grave of Their Son (1874)
• Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot, The Clearing: Memory of Ville d’Avray (1872)
• Dante Gabriel Rossetti, The Gate of Memory (1864)
• Norman Rockwell, Fondly Do We Remember

Film and Stage

• The Dead: only at the end of the film do we learn the story behind one of the characters, whose life is colored by one haunting memory
• The Trip to Bountiful, an elderly woman’s final farewell to youth, dreams and perhaps life
• Au Revoir, les Enfants (Goodbye, Children), film-maker Louis Malle’s memoir of a childhood under Germany’s Third Reich and his unintentional betrayal of a friend – “an epitaph to innocence”
• La Plages de Agnès (The Beaches of Agnès), one woman’s retrospective look at her life