Imaginary

Fictional Narratives

In Les Misérables, after Valjean opens his business and becomes wealthy, honors are offered to him. Valjean declines them.

. . . in 1819 a rumor one morning circulated through the town to the effect that, on the representations of the prefect and in consideration of the services rendered by him to the country, Father Madeleine was to be appointed by the King, mayor of M. sur M. Those who had pronounced this new-comer to be "an ambitious fellow," seized with delight on this opportunity which all men desire, to exclaim, "There! what did we say!" All M. sur M. was in an uproar. The rumor was well founded. Several days later the appointment appeared in the _Moniteur_. On the following day Father Madeleine refused.  In this same year of 1819 the products of the new process invented by Madeleine figured in the industrial exhibition; when the jury made their report, the King appointed the inventor a chevalier of the Legion of Honor. A fresh excitement in the little town. Well, so it was the cross that he wanted! Father Madeleine refused the cross. [Victor Hugo, Les Miserables (1862), Volume I – Fantine; Book Fifth – The Descent Begins, Chapter II, “Madeline”.]

Valjean, a/k/a Father Madeleine, goes out of his way to avoid being noticed as a benefactor.

He performed a multitude of good actions, concealing his agency in them as a man conceals himself because of evil actions. He penetrated houses privately, at night; he ascended staircases furtively. A poor wretch on returning to his attic would find that his door had been opened, sometimes even forced, during his absence. The poor man made a clamor over it: some malefactor had been there! He entered, and the first thing he beheld was a piece of gold lying forgotten on some piece of furniture. The "malefactor" who had been there was Father Madeleine. [Victor Hugo, Les Miserables (1862), Volume I – Fantine; Book Fifth – The Descent Begins, Chapter III, “Sums Deposited with Lafitte”.]

In this passage, Hugo describes a minor character in the novel:

Any one who had chanced to pass through the little town of Vernon at this epoch, and who had happened to walk across that fine monumental bridge, which will soon be succeeded, let us hope, by some hideous iron cable bridge, might have observed, had he dropped his eyes over the parapet, a man about fifty years of age wearing a leather cap, and trousers and a waistcoat of coarse gray cloth, to which something yellow which had been a red ribbon, was sewn, shod with wooden sabots, tanned by the sun, his face nearly black and his hair nearly white, a large scar on his forehead which ran down upon his cheek, bowed, bent, prematurely aged, who walked nearly every day, hoe and sickle in hand, in one of those compartments surrounded by walls which abut on the bridge, and border the left bank of the Seine like a chain of terraces, charming enclosures full of flowers of which one could say, were they much larger: "these are gardens," and were they a little smaller: "these are bouquets." All these enclosures abut upon the river at one end, and on a house at the other. The man in the waistcoat and the wooden shoes of whom we have just spoken, inhabited the smallest of these enclosures and the most humble of these houses about 1817. He lived there alone and solitary, silently and poorly, with a woman who was neither young nor old, neither homely nor pretty, neither a peasant nor a bourgeoise, who served him. The plot of earth which he called his garden was celebrated in the town for the beauty of the flowers which he cultivated there. These flowers were his occupation.  By dint of labor, of perseverance, of attention, and of buckets of water, he had succeeded in creating after the Creator, and he had invented certain tulips and certain dahlias which seemed to have been forgotten by nature. He was ingenious; he had forestalled Soulange Bodin in the formation of little clumps of earth of heath mould, for the cultivation of rare and precious shrubs from America and China. He was in his alleys from the break of day, in summer, planting, cutting, hoeing, watering, walking amid his flowers with an air of kindness, sadness, and sweetness, sometimes standing motionless and thoughtful for hours, listening to the song of a bird in the trees, the babble of a child in a house, or with his eyes fixed on a drop of dew at the tip of a spear of grass, of which the sun made a carbuncle. His table was very plain, and he drank more milk than wine. A child could make him give way, and his servant scolded him. He was so timid that he seemed shy, he rarely went out, and he saw no one but the poor people who tapped at his pane and his curé, the Abbé Mabeuf, a good old man. Nevertheless, if the inhabitants of the town, or strangers, or any chance comers, curious to see his tulips, rang at his little cottage, he opened his door with a smile. He was the "brigand of the Loire."  [Victor Hugo, Les Miserables (1862), Volume III – Marius; Book Third – The Grandfather and the Grandson, Chapter II, “One of the Red Spectres of that Epoch”.]

Poetry

Music: Composers, artists, and major works

Arvo Pärt is “a reclusive, extravagantly bearded Estonian who's ensconced in a world of so-called ‘holy minimalism’ – a reverie of simplicity that luxuriates in the pure sounds of ‘tintinnabulatory’ tonality, which sounds a corrective (for some) and sentimental (for others) note of archaism in a world of chaotic modernity.” His 1968 work Credo put him at odds with Communist authorities in his homeland, for which he went into self-imposed exile for eight years. The “austerity of process (that emerged) makes Pärt's tintinnabulation a new use of tonality, even a new kind of tonality, and it explains why his music sounds simultaneously ancient and modern . . .” So while Pärt is an innovator and a creative genius, his musical style and his personal life reflect a humble spareness and an unassuming quality aptly called modesty. Pärt's asceticism is an important prelude to and a backdrop for the contrasting works that will come later. Albums of his music include “Tabula Rasa” (1984) (76’), “Arbos” (1987) (59’), “Collage” (1993) (63’), “Litany” (1996) (41’), “Beatus” (1997) (61’), “De Profundis”(1997) (69’), “Kanon Pokajanen” (1998) (83’), “I Am the True Vine” (1999) (58’), “Orient & Occident” (2002) (47’), “Summa” (2002) (73’), “Passio” (2003) (62’), “Pro & Contra” (2004) (68’), “Lamentate” (2005) (43’), “Da Pacem” (2006) (64’), “De Profundis” (2006) (76’), “Pilgrim's Song” (2009) (59’), “Cantique” (2010) (60’), by Nederlands Kammerkorkest (2012) (64’), “Kanon Pokajanen” (2013) (93’), “Adam's Lament” (2012) (68’), “Te Deum” (2015) (64’), “Lamentate” (2020) (70’), “Miserere” (2021), and “Tractus” (2023) (67’). His compositions, with links to a performance of each, include:

•   Symphony No. 1, Op. 9, “Polyphonic” (1963) (approx. 19’);
•   Symphony No. 2 (1966) (approx. 13’);
•   Symphony No. 3 (1971) (approx. 20-24’);
•   Tabula rasa (1977) (approx. 26’);
•   Sarah Was Ninety Years Old (1977) (approx. 26’);
•   Passio (1982) (approx. 66’);
•   Te Deum (1984) (approx. 30’);
•   Sieben Magnificat-Antiphonen (Seven Magnificat Atiphons) (1988) (approx. 13-14’);
•   Miserere (1989) (approx. 34-35’);
•   Kanon Pakajanen (1994) (approx. 64’);
•   Lamentate for piano and orchestra (2002) (approx. 38’); and
•   Symphony No. 4, “Los Angeles” (2012) (approx. 33’).

Other works – unadorned and unassuming:

• Pierre Février, Pieces de Clavecin (1735) (approx. 97’)
• Johann Caspar Fischer, 6 Suites for Harpsichord (1696) (approx. 90’)

Conductor Charles Mackerras has been called “(t)he modest maestro”, who never sought the spotlight (though he received many awards), and whose conducting was honest and unadorned. He “was known for performances that were revelatory not only because of their clarity and precision, their astutely judged balances and their consideration of period style, but also because they invariably sounded so deeply felt.” Here are links to his playlists, interviews, and of Mackerras conducting live.

From the dark side:

·  Eleanor Alberga, Violin Concerto No. 2, “Narcissus” (A Perfect Pool) (2019): “. . . the rhapsodic first section beguiles with shimmering string sonorities, gentle murmurs from wind and tuned percussion, above which Bowes’s sweet violin soars as if admiring its own beauty. A slightly faster passage of increasing agitation, initiated by a march (echoes of Prokofiev?), inhabits a profusion of restless ideas that eventually dissolve in the closing paragraph. Seemingly tamed, the soloist brings reminiscences of earlier pirouetting, with Bowes’s violin now ‘weeping’ alongside sympathetic gestures from piano, timpani and muted trumpet before surrendering into a deathly silence.”

Music: songs and other short pieces

• Lynard Skynard, “Simple Man” (lyrics)

Visual Arts

winter tree - Chinese brush painting

Film and Stage

• How Green Was My Valley: “out of the homely virtues of a group of Welsh mining folk—and out of the modest lives of a few sturdy leaders in their midst—Darryl Zanuck, John Ford and their associates at Twentieth Century-Fox have fashioned a motion picture of great poetic charm and dignity.” See also this excellent review from Time Magazine.