Imaginary

Fictional Narratives

From the dark side:

• Margaret Atwood, The Testaments: A Novel (Nan A Talese, 2019): “How did the United States of America become the totalitarian state of Gilead — a place where women are treated as “two-legged wombs”; where nonwhite residents and unbelievers . . . are resettled, exiled or disappeared; where the leadership deliberately uses gender, race and class to divide the country? It started before ordinary citizens like herself were paying attention, Offred remembers: 'We lived, as usual, by ignoring. Ignoring isn’t the same as ignorance, you have to work at it.'”

Poetry

Music: Composers, artists, and major works

This page presents some of the music associated with each of citizenship’s components. Under this global heading of citizenship are lesser-known works, which nevertheless well clarify the distinction and illustrate the point. On the pages that follow are the major works associated with each component.

Like justice, citizenship is multi-faceted. By most definitions, citizenship is the “relationship between an individual and a state to which the individual owes allegiance and in turn is entitled to its protection”. Per the current Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, a citizen “is a member of a political community who enjoys the rights and assumes the duties of membership.” These quasi-legal definitions substantially miss the Humanist point.

Other people focus less on the legal relationship, and more on the ethical dimension of citizenship. The Council of Europe identifies political, cultural, social and economic dimensions of citizenship. Westheimer and Kahne identify three kinds of citizens: personally responsible, participatory and justice-oriented. While these concepts of citizenship come closer to the ideal, they do not fully capture it.

Our Humanist model begins the analysis of citizenship exactly where it begins every ethical analysis: with the intrinsic worth, and the expressed dignity of every person. Based on this starting point, the main aspects of citizenship include being public-spirited, becoming and remaining informed and socially aware, being involved through activism, being generous toward others, supporting and being part of democracy, opposing injustice, through direct action and through dissent. Each of these is expressed in our music. As with justice, citizenship cannot easily be captured in a work of music or any other art.

This page presents some of the music associated with each of citizenship’s components. Under this global heading of citizenship are lesser-known works, which nevertheless well clarify the distinction and illustrate the point. On the pages that follow are the major works associated with each component.

Being public-spirited:

• Jean Sibelius, Finlandia, Op. 26 (1899) (approx. 9’): “In the autumn of 1899 Sibelius composed the music for a series of tableaux illustrating episodes in Finland´s past.” Sibelius remarked: “We fought 600 years for our freedom and I am part of the generation which achieved it. Freedom! My Finlandia is the story of this fight. It is the song of our battle, our hymn of victory.” Excellent recordings are conducted by Koussevitsky in 1945, Sargent in 1963, and Segerstam in 1999.
• Sergei Prokofiev, Symphony No. 5 in B-flat Major, Op. 100 (1944) (43-44’): Composed near the end of World War II, this symphony evokes great challenge, great triumph, and deep involvement with the human condition. Prokofiev remarked: “I regard the Fifth Symphony as the culmination of a long period of my creative life…I conceived of it as glorifying the grandeur of the human spirit…praising the free and happy Man—his strength, his generosity, and the purity of his soul” Top recordings are conducted by Karajan in 1968, Neeme Järvi in 1985, Dutoit in 1988, Levine in 1993, Jurowski in 2005, and Welser-Möst in 2023.
• Alexander Glazunov, The Kremlin, Op. 30 (1890) (approx. 24-29’), “is purely program music, elaborately constructed and national in character.”; a symphonic poem “revealing the heart of Russia in the great monuments of the Kremlin, its palaces and cathedrals . . .” (Teresa Pieschacón Raphael, from the notes to this album.) Best recorded performances are conducted by Ceccato in 1979, Svetlanov in 1990, and Krimets in 1995.
• Alberta Ginastera, Panambi, Op. 1 (1937) (ballet) and Panambi Suite, Op. 1 (1937) (approx. 38’), “is based on a romantic and supernatural legend of love and magic from the Guaraní Indians, a tribe from the headwaters of the Rio Paraná in northern Argentina.” It is “a young man’s statement about his country’s heritage” (Simon Wright, from the notes for this album). “The ballet exemplifies one strain of Latin-American nationalism from the Twenties and Thirties: the evocation of indigenous Indian culture, as shown by such works as Chávez's Sinfonia India and piano concerto and Villa-Lôbos's Amazonas and Uirapurù.” Best audio-recorded performances of the ballet are conducted by Borejko in 2013, Ben-Dor in 2010, Gorelik in 2014 and Mena in 2016. Best recorded performances of the suite are conducted by Goossens in 1960, Robertson in 2001, and Baldini in 2016.

Being informed and socially aware:

• Luciano Berio, Coro (Chorus), for forty voices and forty instruments (1976; extended 1977) (approx. 57’), is based on Pablo Neruda’s poems, from his book Residencia en la Tierra (Residence on Earth) (1931-1947). “A line repeated often is 'come and see the blood on the streets', a reference to a poem by Pablo Neruda, written in the context of savage events in Latin America under various military regimes.” The composer conducted the Cologne Radio Symphony Orchestra and Chorus (I-VIII; IX-XX; XXI-XXVII; XXVIII-XXIX; XXX-XXXI); he also conducted the WDR Sinfonieorchester and Cologne Radio Chorus in 1980. Grete Pedersen conducted a version for eight voices in 2020.
• Kurt Weill, Symphony No. 1, “Berliner Sinfonie” (1921) (approx. 25-27’), “reflects something of the turmoil of post-World War I.” Both of his symphonies represent a departure from the “decadent” music for which he is best known; that music too, comments on German culture at the time. Excellent performances are conducted by Bertini in 1968, de Waart in 1974, Alsop in 2005, Beaumont in 2005, Gruber in 2023, and Mallwitz in 2024.
• Kurt Weill, Symphony No. 2, “Symphonic Fantasy” (1934) (approx. 26-30’): “In 1933, with Hitler in power, Weill escaped to Paris where he wrote Symphony No. 2 . . .” Excellent performances are conducted by Bertini in 1968, de Waart in 1974, Jansons in 1998, Alsop in 2005, Beaumont in 2005, van Steen in 2021, Shani in 2022, Gruber in 2023, and Mallwitz in 2024.
• Weill, Aufstieg und Fall der Stadt Mahagonny (The Rise and Fall of the City of Mahagonny) (1930) (approx. 133-149’): “In an imaginary American city, God consigns its licentious citizens to hell but they truculently reply that they are already there.” “The piece was intended as an allegory of exploitation and hedonism as well as an indictment of a capitalist world that was doomed to end in flaming destruction.” Recordings feature Lenya in 1956, Stratas in 1979, Silja in 1987, and McDonald in 2007 ***.
• Christian Lindberg, “2017” (2017) (approx. 33’) is a 33-minute tone poem expressing what the composer thought of the election of a fascist President in the United States. The composer made the premier recording.
• Tālivaldis Ķeniņš, Symphony No. 7 (1980) (approx. 29’): “The mezzo-soprano solo links the composer more tightly with his family roots, expresses itself in more trusting and optimistic feelings; however, the unease in the harmonies and rhythm likely cannot hide the composer's fears about out era. The concluding epilogue is like an Agnus Dei. The finale should express hope and faith, which stands over life's troubles, soothing our darkest predictions, and suppressing our fears.” Andris Poga conducted the work in 2022.
• James Lee III, Quintet for Clarinet and String Quartet (2018) (approx. 22’) was “inspired by historical aspects of indigenous Americans”.
• Francis Poulenc, Les animaux modèles (The Model Animals), FP 111 (1942) (approx. 41-42’) is a ballet based on fables by Jean de La Fontaine, in which animals represent human characters. “. . . there is a serious purpose behind the fable, and the ballet is undoubtedly a parable of wartime France, languishing under Nazi occupation at the time of composition (the composer himself had been recently demobbed as ‘Private Poulenc’).”
• Arnold Rosner, A My Lai Elegy, Op. 51 (1971, rev. 1993) (approx. 26’) “expresses both rage at the senselessly cruel violence of the incident commemorated and hope that humanity will find a way to rise above such brutality.”

Being Generous:

• Franz Berwald, Symphony No. 4 in E-flat Major (1845) (approx. 26-28’), “is full of a compelling, almost intoxicating vibrance.” “Whether called Sinfonie Naïve or Symphony No. 4, the work radiates a feeling of contentment and lightheartedness.” This vibrancy and lightness convey the feeling that nothing is being withheld – a feeling of generosity. The symphony has been conducted by Markevitch in 1963, Neeme Järvi in 1985, and Kamu in 1996.
• Raga Jansammohini is a Carnatic raag “sung in the night as the welcoming of the night”. Performances are by Hariprasad Chaurasia & Zakir Hussain, Amir Khan, Ashwini Bhide and Tapan Bhattacharya.
• Raga Abhogi (Ābhōgi) is a Carnatic raag adopted into the Hindustani tradition; the title means “sumptuous and luxurious”. Performances are by Nikhil Banerjee, Nikhil Banerjee, Hariprasad Chaurasia, Kaushiki Chakraborty, Amir Khan, Sanjay Subrahmanyan, and Veena Sahasrabuddhe.
• Barbara Harbach, Veneration for Orchestra (approx. 14’) “(with reference to Venus the goddess of love, beauty and desire) has a quiet, gentle and flowing opening, but with some intensity and release.” 

Opposing injustice:

• Dmitri Shostakovich, String Quartet No. 8 in C minor, Op. 110 (1960) (approx. 19-23’): on his score, Shostakovich wrote that the quartet was “In Remembrance of the Victims of Fascism and War”.
• Boris Lyatoshynsky, Symphony No. 3 in B Minor, Op. 50, “Peace Shall Defeat War” (1951) (approx. 41-47’): “The four movement 3rd Symphony had a difficult gestation being banned by the Soviet authorities and only gaining performances after revisions to the apparently anti-Soviet finale.” “It’s an epic work, with emotions raging from despair to hope and reconciliation. Ukraine suffered doubly in WWII and the post-war era, first from Nazi occupation and then from Soviet suspicion of war-time Nazi collaboration. Lyatoshynsky’s greatest symphony puts all of this in perspective.”
• Alexander Zemlinsky’s Symphonische Gesänge for baritone or alto and orchestra, Op. 20 (1929) (approx. 17) (lyrics), is a cycle of songs, in a symphonic setting, by a Jewish composer about the atrocities perpetrated against African-Americans, both ante-bellum and post-bellum.
• John Adams, Scheherazade.2 (2015) (approx. 48’) draws upon Rimsky-Korsakov’s Scheherezade but in contrast to the traditional stories, in which women are abused, Adams’ work offers a musical story of liberation. Viewing an exhibition of the Arabian Nights stories “got Adams thinking about 'the many images of women oppressed or abused or violated that we see today in the news on a daily basis.'”.
• Iannis Xenakis, Nuits (1967) (approx. 12’) is an a capella choral work drawn from the plight of political prisoners in Greece. “. . . as Xenakis was working on Nuits (and Medea) in 1967, his country, Greece, was plunged into the darkness of dictatorship by military junta. He, too, had been a political prisoner as a student in occupied Greece and, still under death sentence by military tribunal, was living in exile. He sought to bring attention to the plight of political prisoners in his own country and elsewhere . . .”
• Richard Danielpour, Four Angels, for string quartet (2020) (approx. 14’), was composed in honor of the four girls killed in the infamous church bombing of September 15, 1963, in Birmingham, Alabama.

Dissenting, the highest form of patriotism:

• Ronald Stevenson, Passacaglia on DSCH (1962) (approx. 71’) is a work for solo piano, inspired by Shostakovich.
• Leoš Janáček, Capriccio "Defiance" for piano left hand & chamber ensemble, JW7/12 (1926) (approx. 19’)
• Paul Hindemith, Mathis der Maler (Mathias the Painter) (1935) (approx. 143-166’) is an opera drawn from the life of Mathias Grünewald, “who lived during the time of the Peasant’s War in Germany, when serfs revolted against their feudal lords, violently turning society on its head in the name of justice before succumbing to hired professional armies”. His paintings focused on crucifixion, evoking suffering of the oppressed. Hindemith composed the opera in Germany in 1934. Performances are conducted by de Billy, Kubelik, and Muno.
• Garrett Fisher, The Passion of St. Thomas More (2001) (approx. 63-64’): “The plot, familiar to many from A Man For All Seasons, concerns Thomas More’s refusal to countenance Henry VIII’s divorce of Catherine of Aragon and sign a statement of support for the king’s subsequent schism with Rome, for which 'crime' he was beheaded.”
• Francis Poulenc, Les animaux modèles (The Model Animals), FP 111 (1942) (approx. 41-42’) is a ballet based on fables by Jean de La Fontaine, in which animals represent human characters. “. . . there is a serious purpose behind the fable, and the ballet is undoubtedly a parable of wartime France, languishing under Nazi occupation at the time of composition (the composer himself had been recently demobbed as ‘Private Poulenc’).”

Music: songs and other short pieces

• The Script, “Hall of Fame” (lyrics)
• Alice Russell, “Citizens” (lyrics)
• Pulp, “Common People” (lyrics)
• Broken Bells, “Citizen” (lyrics)

Visual Arts

Film and Stage

• Cabaret, a cautionary tale about decadence