Imaginary

Fictional Narratives

Novels and stories:

• Kate Walbert, His Favorites: A Novel (Scribner, 2018): “. . . ‘His Favorites’ isn’t a simple narrative of trauma and survival, but something more challenging, and potentially more valuable — a reckoning not just with the reality of abuse, but with the pernicious ways it can shape and inform everything, even the stories you tell yourself.”
• Leif Enger, Virgil Wander: A Novel (Grove Atlantic, 2018) “What a wondrous miracle, to wake up, memory muddled, slightly unmoored, with just the task of relearning yourself, your friends, your hometown nestled along the ruggedly beautiful shores of Lake Superior.”
• Luis Alberto Urrea, The House of Broken Angels: A Novel (Little, Brown & Company, 2018): “ . . . there is much to appreciate in Urrea’s highly entertaining story of Big Angel, the de La Cruz family’s patriarch, who buries his mother even as he himself is dying and as his family gathers to celebrate his 70th, and last, birthday.”
• Beck Dorey-Stein, Rock the Boat: A Novel (The Dial Press, 2021): “A Humbled Millennial Goes Home to New Jersey to Find Herself”.
• Safia Elhillo, Home Is Not a Country: A Novel-in-verse (Make Me a World, 2021) “felt like a love letter to anyone who has ever been an outsider, or searched to understand their history, no matter where they come from.”
• Violaine Huisman, The Book of Mother: A Novel (Scribner, 2021): “Violaine Huisman’s mission is to return her mother to earth, 'become the narrator of her story in order to give her back her humanity.' To do so is to confront the fog of legend that obscured her mother in life and plagues the daughter still, long after her mother’s death.”
• Sasa Stanisic, Where You Come From: A Novel (Tin House Books, 2021): “. . . a wry, inventive and ultimately devastating attempt to recover a personal history that war has put forever out of reach”.
• Vigdis Hjorth, Is Mother Dead? A Novel (Verso Fiction, 2022), “features a middle-aged painter desperate to reconcile with the parent from whom she has long been estranged.”
• Jennifer Maritza McCauley, When Trying to Return Home: Stories (Counterpoint, 2023): “Drawing on her own Puerto Rican and Black American identity, McCauley introduces a diverse cast of characters who collectively struggle with a desperate need to belong, both to the world around them and to one another.”

Poetry

I won the prize essay at school
Here in the village,
And published a novel before I was twenty-five.
I went to the city for themes and to enrich my art;
There married the banker’s daughter,
And later became president of the bank—
Always looking forward to some leisure
To write an epic novel of the war.
Meanwhile friend of the great, and lover of letters,
And host to Matthew Arnold and to Emerson.
An after dinner speaker, writing essays
For local clubs. At last brought here—
My boyhood home, you know—
Not even a little tablet in Chicago
To keep my name alive.
How great it is to write the single line:
“Roll on, thou deep and dark blue Ocean, roll!”

[Edgar Lee Masters, “John Horace Burleson”]

Books of poetry:

• Maya Angelou, The Complete Collected Poems of Maya Angelou (Random House, 1994).

From the dark side:

• Edgar Lee Masters, “Henry Layton”

Music: Composers, artists, and major works

Antonin Dvořák, Symphony No. 8 in G Major, Op. 88, B. 163 (1889) (approx. 33-37’): “After the crisis of the mid-1880s, represented above all by the sombre Seventh Symphony and the Piano Trio in F minor, the period during which Dvorak produced his Eighth Symphony was now a time of equilibrium, when the composer sought the answers to fundamental issues of human existence. The work was written during the summer and early autumn of 1889, mainly at his summer residence in Vysoka. This environment, in which Dvorak was most at ease, seemed to be reflected in the overall atmosphere of his new symphony. Here he created a work filled with the joys of life and his admiration for natural beauty and, once again, the piece reveals the composer’s fondness for Czech and Slavonic folk music.” The central idea, expressed as “bucolic euphoria”, seems to be that the composer has returned home spiritually. Top recorded performances are conducted by Talich in 1935, Walter in 1948; Doráti in 1959, Munch in 1961, Kertész in 1963, Karajan in 1965; Kubelik in 1966, Rowicki in 1969, Ančerl in 1970, Abbado in 1995, Harnoncourt in 1998, Colin Davis in 1999 (mvt 1; mvt 2; mvt 3; mvt 4), Mackerras in 2009, and Bychkov in 2024.

You return home after a long absence. Your family and friends cannot fully understand what you have learned, and you can no longer see them in quite the same way as before. Try as you might, the details of your time away cannot be fully conveyed. Only you, who have known your experiences firsthand, can see them in all their depth. So it is with Arthur Schoonderwoerd’s recordings of Ludwig van Beethoven’s piano concerti. He plays on a fortepiano of Beethoven’s time, accompanied by a small orchestra that sounds like a chamber ensemble. Since Beethoven composed these works, great performers and conductors have brought new techniques to their performance, adding richness and detail but changing the music from what Beethoven’s audiences heard. Perhaps Beethoven would not have liked this evolution, or perhaps he would have been ecstatic that his music could now more fully express what he had intended. The return to roots Schoonderwoerd has provided to us adds a dimension to the understanding and appreciation of these works, and as in life the return to our evolved life is more meaningful for it.

• Piano Concerto No. 1 in C Major, Op. 15 (1795, rev. 1800);
• Piano Concerto No. 2 in B-flat Major, Op. 19 (1789);
• Piano Concerto No. 3 in C minor, Op. 37 (1803);
• Piano Concerto No. 4 in G Major, Op. 58 (1806);
• Piano Concerto No. 5 in E-flat Major, Op. 73 (1809);
• Piano Concerto “No. 6” in D Major, Op. 61a (1807) – this is the violin concerto, performed on fortepiano.

Gordon Jacob’s chamber music with recorder displays an instrument that has fallen out of favor returning in chamber ensemble in the 20th century; nothing fits as it did long ago.

• Suite for recorder and string quartet (1957) (approx. 19’)
• Sonatina for treble recorder and harpsichord (1985) (approx. 10’)
• A Consort of Recorders (1972) (approx. 11’)
• Variations for treble recorder and piano (1962) (approx. 13’)
• Trifles, for treble recorder, violin, cello and harpsichord (1971) (approx. 9’)

Other compositions:

• Henryk Górecki, Szeroka Woda (Broad Waters), Op. 39 (1972) (approx. 15-16’): the title piece is especially exquisite.
• James Willey, String Quartet No. 8 (2009) (approx. 24’): the quartet employs folk themes from Poland and China throughout. This work concludes with as resolved a conclusion as can be found in modern chamber music.
• Of his Symphony No. 5, Africa: A Tone Poem (2014) (approx. 47’), composer Hayden Wayne writes: “. . . Jazz subsequently begot Rhythm and Blues which begot Rock ‘n’ Roll. Theser folk idioms are so deeply entrenched in my psyche, that I was moved to write my symphonic trilogy: #2 REGGAE, #3 HEAVY METAL and #4 FUNK. This led me finally to my roots . . . AFRICA.”
• Frederick Delius, Brigg Fair (1907) (approx. 16’)
• Vagn Holmboe, Viola Concerto, M357, Op. 189 (1992) (approx. 21’): we hear the composer returning to his youthful home in the Balkans
• Mozart Camargo Guarnieri, Piano Concerto No. 6 (1987) (approx. 12’): the composer returns to previous styles of composition in this “personal summation, a tribute to his own creative life” (James Melo, from the notes to this album).
• Lukas Foss, Symphony No. 4, "Window to the Past" (1995) (approx. 36-42’)
• Fred Frith, String Quartet No. 1, “Lelekovice” (1990) (approx. 28’) (Lelekovice is a Czechoslovakian municipality)
• Leo Fall, Der fidele Bauer (The Merry Farmer) (1907) (approx. 86-110’): the son of an Austrian peasant disrespects his father after becoming a professor through the father’s hard work and sacrifice, but later learns to appreciate him. “The complex plot essentially concerns an Austrian peasant who ensures that his son has a good education only to find him ashamed of his father’s status when he becomes a Professor. In the final Act they are reconciled.”
• Andy Akiho, LIgNEouS – suite for marimba and string quartet (2016) (approx. 35-36’). Akiho explains: “'LIgNEouS' means, 'made, consisting of, or resembling wood.' This title was chosen because the marimba, violin, viola, and cello are all primarily made of wood. Also, the marimbist is often required to play with dowel rod bundles (rutes) and mallet shafts, without typical yarn mallet heads, in order to enhance the extremely wooden sounds and to articulate the highest overtones of the marimba. I also wanted to use industrial timbres in addition to the melodic marimba bars, accomplished through glissandos and strikes to the metallic resonators.” The work explores how the different applications of wood interact.
• Dmitri Klebanov, String Quartet No. 4 (1946) (approx. 17’)
• Ross Edwards, Symphony No. 2, “Earth Spirit Songs” (1997) (approx. 21-22’): Edwards explains this symphony’s genesis, arising out of “. . . the inevitable split, for a non-indigenous Australian, between cultural origins and birthplace. I can recognise now that it is finished, that this symphony represents, in part, an attempt to reconcile these opposites as well as the ones implicit in the subtitle.”

Albums:

• Will Ackerman, “Returning” (2004) (53’) is a gorgeous compilation disc of music for solo guitar, broadly classified as New Age, though it avoids most of the formulaic conventions of that genre.
• Jakob Bro, “Returnings” (2018) (42’): “Most of this album has an acoustic, organic sound, but the title track is an exception. Here, Bro and brethren take a darker, electronic tack; it’s an unusual addition to the program, but it works. As a whole, this is a recording to be savored during life’s quieter moments.”
• Stephan Crump & Rosetta Trio, “Reclamation” (2010) (48’): “Vignettes in music are not all that uncommon—or unusual, for that matter. But when they are only partially written—or mostly suggested—by the composer, to be largely interpreted and improvised with singular flights of the imagination then they are not simply uncommon, but beautifully unique. Moreover, if the performers form a string trio where a myriad of perspectives collide, swinging madly as they careen in and out of a moving timeline, then they become more alluring. And finally, if the music tumbles down in virtuoso ways as it of explores that confluence of instrument, music, musician and ideas—as bassist, Stephan Crump's Rosetta Trio does on Reclamation—then a whole new cultural ethos begins to emerge; the music is, then, quite priceless.”
• William Goldstein, “A Long Way Home” soundtrack (2019) (32’)
• Carn Davidson 9, “The History of Us” (2021) (53’): “Comprising of two suites of music (one by Carn and one by Davidson), this album is a meditation on family, loss and migration.”
• Return Trip, “Spanish Roots” (2021) (38’): Spanish folk and flamenco music
• Geoff Eales Trio, “The Homecoming” (2005) (66’)
• Pee Wee Russell & Coleman Hawkins, “Jazz Reunion” (1960) (46’)
• Matthew Shipp, “Piano Vortex” (2007) (53’): “Shipp revisits his roots on Piano Vortex by eschewing electronics and post-production wizardry in favor of the traditional acoustic piano trio format.”
• Yungchen Lhamo, “Coming Home” (1998) (52’): “She sings traditional Tibetan folk songs that she learned from her family and original compositions -- mostly a cappella.” Lhamo says: “When I grew up I knew nothing of freedom. I lived in poverty and was denied the rights most people take for granted. This is the ordeal Tibetans are subjected to, then and now. Since I escaped, by foot over the Himalayas like so many other Tibetans, I have been able to find freedom in the West. Working on this album, being able to experiment using my Tibetan voice with Western sounds, is an expression of that freedom —a freedom to work and express myself that I never knew in Tibet.”
• Maya Youssef, “Finding Home” (2022) (62’) is “. . . a journey through memories and the essence of home both within and without . . .”; “Syrian Dreams” (2017) (50’) “was inspired by Maya Youssef’s reactions to seeing her homeland ravaged by war in 2011.”
• Gavin Marwick, “Quarterdays” (2023) (27’) “is a project by much-travelled Edinburgh fiddler Gavin Marwick to celebrate, in four seasonally-released EPs,  the old Scots quarter days of Candlemas, Whitsun, Lammas and Martinmas, all of them beloved of folk-balladeers and researchers past and present. . . All the tunes are newly penned by Gavin to illustrate the history and lore of the season, and all are firmly anchored in the traditional styles of jigs, reels and airs with clever variations by both musicians.”
• Fiachra O’Regan, “Na Beanna Beola” (2023) (56’): Irish jigs and reels on uillean pipes
• The Gloaming, “The Gloaming” (2014) (60’) is an album of traditional Irish jigs, reels and folk songs in a modern style.
• Cara Dillon, “Coming Home” (2024) (42’): “She balances passion and sincerity with every song she handles, whether traditional or original songs she leaves you with lasting memories.”
• Katherine Priddy, “The Pendulum Swing” (2024) (44’): “. . . its title referenc(es) the urge to leave and change, and the opposing pull to return to the familiar.”

Music: songs and other short pieces

• Simon & Garfunkel, “Homeward Bound” (lyrics)
• Nawang Khechog, “A Sad Return to My Birthplace”
• Yungchen Lhamo, “Coming Home”
• Franz Schubert (composer), “Rückweg” (The Way Back), D. 476 (1816) (lyrics)

Visual Arts

• Norman Rockwell, Thanksgiving: Mother and Son Peeling Potatoes (1945)
• Giorgio de Chirico, Happiness of Returning (1915)
• Frédéric Bazille, Family Reunion (1867)

Film and Stage

• The Celebration, a deliberately ironic title for this family gathering
• The Secret of Roan Inish: on connecting with family through its folklore