CHAPTER 4: The DEMOCRATIC (R)EVOLUTION We are better than we realize we are. For the first time, we can now create institutions of governance that elicit our best. Copyright 2026 by Paul L. LaClair
Value for Tuesday of Week 26 in the season of Ripening
Appreciating People
Appreciating people implies valuing, honoring, and admiring them.
- Appreciation is a wonderful thing: It makes what is excellent in others belong to us as well. [attributed to Voltaire]
- . . . express your appreciation to your partner. A thank you or a quick kiss can go a long way toward affirming your relationship and commitment to each other. That’s not hard to do even when you’re juggling insane careers and three kids. [attributed to Michael Ian Black]
Beyond understanding is appreciation. When we appreciate people, we value and honor them, in addition to understanding them. This may be accompanied by gratefulness and/or admiration. Appreciation branches out from the intellect into the emotions, and signals the formation of a human bond.
There are many kinds of appreciation: of music, art, science, nature, talent – many things. Each of these generally implies understanding and enjoyment of the subject matter. “Appreciating something (e.g. an event, a person, a behavior, an object) involves noticing and acknowledging its value and meaning and feeling a positive emotional connection to it.” This takes on a special character when we appreciate people.
The attitude of appreciation is positively associated with life satisfaction, whether it relates to other people or not. Appreciating a sunset, trees, and a starry sky, all are psychologically beneficial. This is related to the awe and wonder we experience in a state of natural piety. We can experience awe, wonder, and a sense of piety about people too. We are part of nature, and we also have qualities that a rock does not have.
“. . . interpersonal appreciation is valuing and appreciating others in one’s life . . .” “Feeling genuinely appreciated lifts people up. At the most basic level, it makes us feel safe, which is what frees us to do our best work. It’s also energizing.” Appreciating and feeling appreciated are essential in romantic partnerships, important in friendships, and useful in workplace relationships. Interpersonal appreciation is an aspect of spirituality.
Appreciation is emotional excellence.
Real
True Narratives
Travel writer Ian Frazier personifies this virtue. The quality of appreciation shines through his writings, listed below.
- Ian Frazier, Travels in Siberia (Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 2010).
- Ian Frazier, Great Plains (Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 1989).
- Ian Frazier, Family (Picador, 2002).
- Ian Frazier, Gone to New York: Adventures in the City (Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 2005).
- Ian Frazier, On the Rez (Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 2002).
- Ian Frazier, Nobody Better, Better Than Nobody (Picador, 2003).
Appreciation for a region and its people is the key to great travel writing.
- Rebecca West, Black Lamb and Gray Falcon: A Journey Through Yugoslavia (The Viking Press, 1942).
- Ilija Trojanow, Along the Ganges (Haus Publishers, Ltd., 2006).
- Wilfred Thesiger, Arabian Sands (1959).
- V. S. Naipaul, An Area of Darkness (Picador, 1965).
- V. S. Naipaul, India: A Million Mutinies (Viking Adult, 1991).
- M.F.K. Fisher, As They Were (Knopf, 1982).
- M.F.K. Fisher, Two Towns in Provence (Fawcett, 1983).
- Captain John Smith, Writings with Other Narratives of Roanoke, Jamestown, and the First English Settlement of America (Library of America, 2007).
- George Orwell, Down and Out in Paris and London (Houghton, Mifflin,1933).
- George Orwell, Homage to Catalonia (Houghton, Mifflin, 1952).
- Peter Hessler, River Town (Harper Collins, 2001).
- Alexis de Tocqueville, Democracy in America: Volume 1; Volume 2 (1835).
- Ryszard Kapuściński, The Emperor: Downfall of an Autocrat (Vintage, 1978).
- Ryszard Kapuściński, The Soccer War (Knopf, 1991).
- Ryszard Kapuściński, Shah of Shahs (Harcourt, 1985).
- Alexander William Kinglake, Eothen (John Olivier, 1844).
- Sven Lindqvist, Exterminate All the Brutes: One Man’s Odyssey into the Heart of Darkness and the Origins of European Genocide (New Press, 1996).
- Gontran De Poncins, From a Chinese City (Trackless Sands, 1991).
- Paul Theroux, The Pillars of Hercules: A Grand Tour of the Mediterranean (Random House, 1995).
- Paul Theroux, Riding the Red Rooster by Train Through China (Houghtonm Mifflin 1988).
- Paul Theroux, The Great Railway Bazaar by Train Through Asia (Houghton , Mifflin, 1975).
- J. R. Ackerley, Hindoo Holiday: An Indian Journal (New York Review of Books, 1932).
- Herodotus, The Histories: Volume I; Volume II (circa 440 b.c.).
- Mark Twain, The Innocents Abroad (The American Publishing Company, 1869).
- Mark Twain, Life on the Mississippi (1883).
- Nicholas Dawidoff, In the Country of Country: A Journal to the Roots of American Music (Vintage, 1998).
- Mark Salzman, Iron & Silk (1986).
- José Saramago, Journey to Portugal: In Pursuit of Portugal's History and Culture (Harcourt Books, 1981).
- George Catlin, Letters and Notes on the Manners, Customs and Conditions of the North America Indians Volume 1 (1841); Volumes 1 and 2
- V. S. Pritchett, London Perceived (Harcourt, Brace and World, 1962).
- Suketu Mehta, Maximum City: Bombay Lost and Found (Vintage, 2004).
- Truman Capote, The Muses are Heard (Random House, 1956).
- Isabelle Eberhardt, The Nomad: Diaries of Isabelle Eberhardt (Interlink Books, 2003)
- Jonathan Raban, Old Glory: A Voyage Down the Mississippi (Vintage, 1998).
- Jonathan Raban, Coasting: A Private Voyage (The Harville Press, 1986).
- Rory Stewart, The Places in Between (Harcourt, 2006).
- Robert Byron, The Road to Oxiana (Jonathan Cape, Ltd., 1937).
- Mark Twain, Roughing It (1872).
- Peter Theroux, Sandstorms: Days and Nights in Arabia (W. W. Norton & Co., 1990).
- Norman Douglas, Siren Land (1911).
- Bruce Chatwin, The Songlines (Viking, 1987).
- Sacheverell Sitwell, Southern Baroque Art: A Study of Painting Architecture And Music in Italy (1923)
- Paul Bowles, Their Heads are Green and their Hands are Blue (Random House, 1963).
- James McConkey, To a Distant Land (Dutton, 1984).
- Charles M. Doughty, Travels in Arabia Deserta (Cambridge, 1888).
- R. L. Stevenson, Travels with a Donkey in the Cervantes (1879).
- Norman Lewis, A View of the World (Eland Publishing, 1986).
- Norman Lewis, Naples '44: A World War II Diary of Occupied Italy (Carrol and Graff, 2005).
- Norman Lewis, Golden Earth: Travels in Burma (Charles Scribner, 1952).
- John Steinbeck, Travels With Charley: In Search of America (Penguin).
- Jan Morris, Venice (Faber and Faber, 1973).
- Jan Morris, Trieste and the Meaning of Nowhere (Da Capo Press, 2001).
- Colin Thubron, Among the Russians (William Heinemann, 1983).
- Colin Thubron, Behind the Wall (Atlantic Monthly, 1988).
- Pico Iyer, Video Night in Kathmandu and Other Reports from the Not-so-far East (Bloomsbury, 2001).
- Hans Magnus Enzensberger, Europe, Europe (Pantheon, 1989).
- William Dalrymple, City of Djinns: A Year in Delphi (Harper Collins, 1994).
- Tony Horwitz, Baghdad Without a Map and other misadventures in Arabia (Dutton, 1991).
- Lisa Napoli, Radio Shangri-La: What I Learned in Bhutan, the Happiest Kingdom on Earth (Crown, 2011): an “affectionate portrait of life in a slower-paced, high-altitude society”.
- Jamie James, Pagan Light: Dreams of Freedom and Beauty in Capri (Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 2019): “If you read James’s book, you will know that you should do more than sail through the narrow entrance of the Blue Grotto: You must hunt down the former Villa Behring, near Capri’s main square, where Gorky and Lenin played chess, and seek out the homes of the lesser-known figures of Capri’s past, whose rich stories are the true focus of this marvel of nuanced, connected biography.”
- Paul Theroux, On the Plain of Snakes: A Mexican Journey (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2019): “In my time in Mexico I’d made many friends with Mexican writers, spoken at a number of literary and political events, and found a Mexican publisher. One of the greatest thrills in travel is to know the satisfaction of arrival, and to find oneself among friends.”
- Alexandra Fuller, ed., The Best American Travel Writing 2019 (Mariner/Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2019): “ . . . the anthology is best when its contents expand to themes that are larger than a place on a map.”
- A New York Times list of 52 books, fiction and non-fiction, about places from around the world.
Not quite travel writing, here are books by people who adopted new places to live:
- Craig Taylor, Londoners: The Days and Nights of London Now – As Told by Those Who Love It, Hate It, Live It, Left It, and Long for It (Ecco/HarperCollins Publishers, 2012): “a rich and exuberant kaleidoscopic portrait of a great, messy, noise, daunting, inspiriting, maddening, enthralling, constantly shifting Rorshach.”
Other narratives on the theme of appreciation:
- Stacey O’Brien, Wesley the Owl: The Remarkable Love Story of an Owl and His Girl (Free Press, 2008).
- Daniel Mark Epstein, The Ballad of Bob Dylan: A Portrait (Harper/HarperCollins Publishers, 2011): a “biography-cum-critical appreciation” about this legendary “shape-shifter swapping various personae down the years”.
- Gail Godwin, The Making of a Writer, Volume 2: Journals, 1963-1969 (Random House, 2011): “The second volume of Gail Godwin’s journals shows her turning life into fiction.”
- S.C. Gwynne, Empire of the Summer Moon: Quannah Parker and the Rise and Fall of the Comanche Tribe, the Most Powerful Indian Tribe in America (Scribner, 2010): “ . . . thanks to Gwynne, the story of Quanah Parker may assume a more fittingly prominent role in the history of the American West. ‘Empire of the Summer Moon’ isn’t just a biography. It’s a forceful argument about the place of Native American tribes in geopolitical history.”
- Robert Ferguson, Scandinavians: In Search for the Soul of the North (Overlook Press, 2017): “ . . . an engaging, layered look into a culture complex enough both to produce stylish rain gear and to embrace the foul weather that necessitates it.”
- Mary Norris, Greek To Me: Adventures of the Comma Queen (W.W. Norton & Company, 2019): “ . . . one of the most satisfying accounts of a great passion that I have ever read. It traces a decades-long obsession with Greece: its language (both modern and ancient), literature, mythologies, people, places, food and monuments — all with an absorption that never falters and never squanders the reader’s attention.”
- Joan Didion, The White Album: Essays by Joan Didion (Simon & Schuster, 1981): “Joan Didion's California is a place defined not so much by what her unwavering eye observes, but by what her memory cannot let go.”
- Ed Douglas, Himalaya: A Human History (Norton, 2021): “Climbing the Himalaya With Soldiers, Spies, Lamas and Mountaineers”.
- Michael Stevens and Annalyn Swan, Francis Bacon: Revelations (Knopf, 2021): “It’s Bacon’s kindness and decency the authors take pains to evoke — his beautiful manners, his generosity.”
- Fintan O’Toole, We Don’t Know Ourselves: A Personal History of Modern Ireland (Liveright, 2022): “. . . it is not a memoir, nor is it an absolute history, nor is it entirely a personal reflection or a crepuscular credo. It is, in fact, all of these things helixed together: his life, his country, his thoughts, his misgivings, his anger, his pride, his doubt, all of them belonging, eventually, to us.”
- Ned Blackhawk, The Rediscovery of America: Native Peoples and the Unmaking of U.S. History (Yale University Press, 2013): “‘How can a nation founded on the homelands of dispossessed Indigenous peoples be the world’s most exemplary democracy?’ This is the provocative question with which Ned Blackhawk opens his important new book . . .”
- Christopher Clark, Revolutionary Spring: Europe Aflame and a Fight for a New World, 1848-1849 (Crown, 2023): “Across Europe in the middle of the 19th century, peasant farmers, wealthy liberals and urban radicals banded together to challenge monarchical authority.”
- Peter Englund, November 1942: An Intimate History of the Turning Point of World War II (Knopf, 2023): “An 'intimate history' does 'not attempt to describe what the war was during these four critical weeks,' he explains, 'but will try to say something about how it was.'”
Books illustrating appreciation of an individual:
- Blake Bailey, Philip Roth: The Biography (W.W. Norton & Company, 2021): “. . . a Life of the Literary Master as Aggrieved Playboy”.
- Robert Gottlieb, Garbo: Her Life, Her Fans (Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 2021): Gottlieb “brings to his assessments a fan’s appreciation, a connoisseur’s acuity and an amused impatience with the aspects of them that are and always were ridiculous.”
- Brian Morton, Tasha: A Son’s Memoir (, 2022): “With humility and grace, he tells us that he has failed his mother by not seeing her as a full and complete person, one with great courage, complexity and strength.”
Technical and Analytical Readings
Photographs
Documentary and Educational Films
Imaginary
Fictional Narratives
"Exactly," said St. George, smiling pleasantly, "I quite understand. A good dragon. Believe me, I do not in the least regret that he is an adversary worthy of my steel, and no feeble specimen of his noxious tribe." "But he's not a noxious tribe," cried the Boy, distressedly. "Oh dear, oh dear, how stupid men are when they get an idea into their heads! I tell you he's a good dragon, and a friend of mine, and tells me the most beautiful stories you ever heard, all about old times and when he was little. And he's been so kind to mother, and mother'd do anything for him. And father likes him too, though father doesn't hold with art and poetry much, and always falls asleep when the dragon starts talking about style. But the fact is, nobody can help liking him when once they know him. He's so engaging and so trustful, and as simple as a child!" [Kenneth Grahame, “The Reluctant Dragon” (1902).]
Olenka listened to Kukin seriously, in silence. Sometimes tears would rise to her eyes. At last Kukin’s misfortune touched her. She fell in love with him. He was short, gaunt, with a yellow face, and curly hair combed back from his forehead, and a thin tenor voice. His features puckered all up when he spoke. Despair was ever inscribed on his face. And yet he awakened in Olenka a sincere, deep feeling. She was always loving somebody. She couldn’t get on without loving somebody. She had loved her sick father, who sat the whole time in his armchair in a darkened room, breathing heavily. She had loved her aunt, who came from Brianska once or twice a year to visit them. And before that, when a pupil at the progymnasium, she had loved her French teacher. She was a quiet, kind-hearted, compassionate girl, with a soft gentle way about her. And she made a very healthy, wholesome impression. Looking at her full, rosy cheeks, at her soft white neck with the black mole, and at the good naïve smile that always played on her face when something pleasant was said, the men would think, “Not so bad,” and would smile too; and the lady visitors, in the middle of the conversation, would suddenly grasp her hand and exclaim, “You darling!” in a burst of delight. [Anton Chekhov, “The Darling” (1899).]
Novels illustrating the theme of appreciation:
- Michael Ondaatje, The English Patient: A Novel (Knopf, 1992): “A man with no face. An ebony pool. All identification consumed in a fire. Parts of his burned body and face had been sprayed with tannic acid that hardened into a protective shell over his raw skin." Hana, a young Canadian nurse, stays on devotedly, supplying him with morphine and foraged food.”
- Francisco Goldman, Say Her Name: A Novel (Grove Press, 2011), is a “beautifully written account of Goldman’s short marriage to Estrada, a fiction writer who died in a bodysurfing accident in 2007, two years into their marriage, when she was 30. . .”
- Giorgio Bassani, The Novel of Ferrara (W.W. Norton & Company , 2018): in these short stories and novellas “We learn the cultural significance of attending the German synagogue (“so severe and contrasting in its almost Lutheran gathering of prosperous, burgherly Homburg hats”) versus the Italian synagogue (“more working-class and theatrical, almost Catholic”) or of vacationing at the bourgeois seaside resort of Riccione versus the more plebeian Gatteo.”
- María Gainza, Optic Nerve: A Novel (Catapult, 2019): “María’s store of information about painters and their lives can make reading the book feel, delightfully, like auditing a course.”
- Zoë Wicomb, Still Life: A Novel (New Press, 2020): “A stunningly original new novel exploring race, truth in authorship, and the legacy of past exploitation . . .”
- Jamie Figueroa, Brother, Sister, Mother, Explorer: A Novel (Catapult, 2021): “A Novelist Asks White Tourists to Picture the Black Lives They Overlook” - the theme is of people in other cultures, and how their to-our-eyes primitive lives are as complex as ours.
- Joshua Henkin, Morningside Heights: A Novel (Pantheon, 2021): this “story of a brilliant Shakespearean and his wife — once his student — radiates a tenderness for the city that we, his intended readers, can best appreciate — perhaps now most of all, as we ask our city to return to us.”
- Susan Straight, Mecca: A Novel (Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 2022), “is a love song for a place and its people.”
- Édouard Louis, A Woman’s Battles and Transformations: A Novel (Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 2022), “focuses on his mother’s life.”
- Jamel Brinkley, Witness: Stories (Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 2023), “investigates the impact of seeing and being seen.”
- Percival Everett, James: A Novel (Random House, 2024): “Everett flips the perspective on the events in ‘Huckleberry Finn.’ He gives us the story as a coolly electric first-person narrative in the voice of Jim, the novel’s enslaved runaway.”
Poetry
O to have been brought up on bays, lagoons, creeks, or along the coast,
To continue and be employ'd there all my life,
The briny and damp smell, the shore, the salt weeds exposed at low water,
The work of fishermen, the work of the eel-fisher and clam-fisher;
I come with my clam-rake and spade, I come with my eel-spear,
Is the tide out? I Join the group of clam-diggers on the flats,
I laugh and work with them, I joke at my work like a mettlesome young man;
In winter I take my eel-basket and eel-spear and travel out on foot on the ice—I have a small axe to cut holes in the ice,
Behold me well-clothed going gayly or returning in the afternoon, my brood of tough boys accompanying me,
My brood of grown and part-grown boys, who love to be with no one else so well as they love to be with me,
By day to work with me, and by night to sleep with me.
[Walt Whitman, Leaves of Grass (1891-92), Book XI, “A Song of Joys”]
Other poems:
- William Wordsworth, “Glad Sight Wherever New With Old”
- John Keats, “Happy Is England”
Books of poems and about poets:
- Lucasta Miller, Keats: A Brief Life in Nine Poems and One Epitaph (Knopf 2022): “By structuring ‘Keats’ around nine specific poems (and an epitaph), and allowing herself a recurring, candid first person, Miller evokes the shifting, various genius of her subject without dumbing-down, while avoiding the conventions of academic biography. Keats, as she says, is never a fixed entity. He's always in motion.'”
Music: Composers, artists, and major works
Folk music is the common music of a people; it celebrates people in their everyday lives. Great examples include:
- Steeleye Span, “Good Times of Old England: Steeleye Span, 1972-1983” (665’) (Britain)
- Luke Kelly, releases (Ireland)
- John Prine, releases (USA)
- Tom Paxton, playlists (USA)
- Judy Collins, releases (USA)
- Dave van Ronk, playlists (USA)
- Ramblin’ Jack Elliot, playlists (USA)
- Buffy Sainte-Marie, playlists (indigenous USA)
- Gillian Welch, releases (USA - Americana and Appalachian)
- Nasida Ria, playlists (Java)
- Franky Sahilatua, playlists (Java)
- Kirill Bogomilov, playlists (Russia)
- Skäggmanslaget, playlists (Sweden)
- Tiriltunga, playlists (Norway)
- Notis Sfanianakis, playlists (Greece and Cyprus)
- Lucilla Galeazzi, playlists (Italy)
- Anabel Santiago, playlists (Spain)
- Gabriel Yacoub, playlists (France)
- Gerardo Ortiz, releases (USA - Mexican folk)
- Lee Heemoon, albums and singles (Korean folk)
Especially compelling folk albums include:
- The Horsenecks, “In the West” (2025) (45’)
Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra with Wynton Marsalis, featuring Paco de Lucia, Vitoria Suite (2010) (95’): this work draws on the orchestra’s experiences in Vitoria, Spain, and offers their musical impression of the people, their culture and their music, from an American jazz perspective. “Marsalis uses the impulse of the blues as a foundation to jointly explore the music of 2 worlds and 2 cultures: The jazz and blues of North merica and the indigenous Basque music and flamenco of Spain”
Puerto Rican composer Ernesto Cordero composed Caribbean Concertos, reflecting an appreciation for Caribbean culture:
- Concierto Festivo (2003) (approx. 24’) for guitar and string orchestra
- Ínsula: Suite Concertante (2009) (approx. 16’) for violin and string orchestra
- Concertino Tropical (1998) (approx. 11’) for violin and string orchestra
Other works:
- Antonín Dvořák, String Quartet No. 12 in F Major, Op. 96, B 179, "American" (1893) (approx. 24-27’) (list of recorded performances): a visit to the United States inspired this work, which draws on Native American and African-American themes. Here is a list of recorded performances.
- Dvořák, Hussite Overture, Op. 67, B 132 (1883) (approx. 14’) (list of recorded performances): “The form of the work was originally to have corresponded to Subert’s planned trilogy: 'The rise of the Hussite movement, the struggles of the Hussites and, after the wars, reconciliation'”
- Richard Strauss, Aus Italien (From Italy), Op. 16 (1886) (approx. 41-45’) (list of recorded performances): young Strauss’ impressions of Italy
- Alfred Hill, String Quartet No. 16 in B-flat Major, "Celtic" (1938) (approx. 24’): appreciation for a people and its music
- Samuel Coleridge-Taylor, Scenes from the Song of Hiawatha (1900) (approx. 150’): “The Song of Hiawatha is a trilogy of cantatas by Samuel Coleridge-Taylor, set to the lines of US poet Henry Wadsworth Longfellow.” Here is the text of Longfellow’s poem.
- Gustav Holst, Egdon Heath (Homage to Hardy), Op. 47, H172 (1927) (approx. 13’) (list of recorded performances): at the top of the score, Holst penned these words, from Thomas Hardy’s The Return of the Native: “A place perfectly accordant with man’s nature – neither ghastly, hateful nor ugly; neither commonplace, unmeaning nor tame; but like man, slighted and enduring; and withal singularly colossal and mysterious in its swarthy monotony.”
- Brett Dean, Epitaphs for string quintet (2010) (approx. 20’): the composer describes these pieces as “as much a celebration of personal qualities, characteristics and achievements as it is also an expression of loss and contemplations of energetic lives fulfilled as well as of lives cut short.”
- Theodore Chanler, Eight Epitaphs (1937) (approx. 13’)
- Morton Gould, Foster Gallery for Orchestra (1939) (approx. 35’) – after Stephen Foster
- Michael Torke, Miami Grands, for ten pianos (2014) (approx. 48’): “Each of the twelve movements tries to reflect not only different locations in Miami, but different times of day in those locations.”
- Ernest Bloch, America: An Epic Rhapsody (1926) (approx. 39-50’): “Bloch has written that the idea had first occurred to him when he arrived in New York Harbour back in 1916. He wanted to compose an anthem that 'should rightfully belong to and reflect the country for which it might stand.'”
- Meredith Willson, Symphony No. 1 in F Minor, “A Symphony of San Francisco” (1936) (approx. 39’) “was written to commemorate the city's revival thirty years after the earthquake of 1906.”
- Katherine Hoover, String Quartet No. 1 (1998) (approx. 23’): the composer drew on Native American images, as she saw them.
- Manuel de Falla, 7 canciones populares españolas (7 Spanish Folksongs) for voice and piano, dedicated to Madame Ida Godebska (1914) (approx. 12-16’): “All the songs in the Siete canciones populares españolas set derive from different regions of Spain, maintaining their original character and appeal without ever falling into a cliché. All of them deal with love and everything that comes with it, joyful or painful.”
- Egon Wellesz, Symphony No. 2, Op. 65, “English” (1948) (approx. 42’): the composer had moved to England and was immersing himself in its literature and culture.
- Marc Satterwhite, percussion works, as presented on the album “Nazca Lines: Journeys for Percussion” (2021) (approx. 45’): the album presents works inspired by Peruvian, Japanese and Finnish cultures.
- David Stock, Concierto Cubano (2000) (approx. 19’)
- Joel Engel, Dybbuk Suite, Op. 35 (1922) (approx. 24’): “. . . a tale about a ‘dybbuk,’ the soul of a dead person possessing a living one. Captivated, Ansky went on to write the play The Dybbuk, and Engel wrote the incidental music . . .”
- Béla Bartók, Piano Sonata in A-flat Major, Op. 19, BB 88, Sz. 80 (1926) (approx. 12-15’): “We are left with the colourful impression that these are authentic folk tunes, fresh from the fields of Transylvania, but they are all in fact derived from Bartók’s own imaginative invention.”
- Adolphus Hailstork, Piano Quintet, “Detroit” (2018) (approx. 25’): “Hailstork pays homage to the city that had given him many opportunities early on . . .”
- Eleanor Alberga, Tower (2017) (approx. 11’) “is a memorial for violinist David Angel . . . But it’s a more volatile memorial than most: mournfulness runs up against celebration, reflection melts into urgency, Angel’s character as ‘a tower of strength’ (to use the composer’s words) merges with his ‘sense of humor.’” Alberga says: “I always admired his profound musicianship and great knowledge of music.”
- Igor Stravinsky, Suite Italienne, K034b (1920) (approx. 19’) (list of recorded performances), “is one of several spin-offs from Pulcinella, the ‘ballet with song’ that Igor Stravinsky (1882-1971) composed for the Ballets Russes impresario Serge Diaghilev in 1920. ‘Composed’ in this case being a somewhat misleading verb, as Diaghilev had found tunes he wanted to use by Giovanni Battista Pergolesi (1710-1736), which he gave to Stravinsky to arrange.”
- Thomas Pitfield, Bucolics (approx. 13’) “. . . is based on a series of six Scottish, English and Irish tunes . . .”
Albums:
- Jan Garbarek, “Ragas and Sagas” (1991) (52’): “. . . Norwegian saxophonist Jan Garbarek surely turned not a few heads by collaborating with legendary Pakistani vocalist Ustad Fateh Ali Khan . . .”
- Art Ensemble of Chicago, “Urban Bushman” (1980) (93’)
- Russ Lossing, “Metamorphism” (2021) (68’): the players appreciating each other, and paying tribute to jazz greats Paul Motian and Andrew Hill.
- Russ Lossing, “Motian Music” (2019) (63’): “The group is a great fit for Motian’s tunes, which are ripe for creative interpretation . . .”
- Harris Eisenstadt, “Canada Day” (2008) (56’): “Drawing upon some of the best new talent in the Brooklyn scene, Eisenstadt's formidable quintet is as capable of adventurous timbral explorations as they are of in-the-pocket swing.”
- Harris Eisenstadt, “Canada Day II” (2011)
- Harris Eisenstadt, “Canada Day III”
- Harris Eisenstadt, “Canada Day IV” (2015) – “. . . idiosyncratic, hybridized jazz . . .”
- Harris Eisenstadt, “Golden State” (2013) “is a polyrhythmic presentation that unites jazz and an ultra-modern chamber perspective . . .”
- Harris Eisenstadt, “Golden State II” (2014) was “recorded live at the 2014 TD Vancouver International Jazz Festival”.
- Kelan Phil Cohran and Legacy, “African Skies” (1993)
- William Goldstein, “Living Treasures of Japan” (2010) (27’) soundtrack for National Geographic
- Elena Casanova, “Ensueños De Cuba” (Daydreams of Cuba) (2021) (70’)
- Hartwin Dhoore Trio, “Valge Valgus” (2021) (35’): in the liner notes, Dhoore writes that the album “is a musical reflection of all the beautiful landscapes and people I’m surrounded with. I hope the peace, love and joy I find here will reach you through this instrumental story.”
- Warsaw Village Band, “Sun Celebration” (Święto Słońca) (2015) (66’): “An inventive and often thrilling exercise in breaking down musical borders.”
- Miguel Zenón, “Música de las Américas” (2022) (65’): “. . . he broadens his vision to celebrate the history of the American continents, north and south, as well as the multiplicity of America's Atlantic Ocean islands, to delve into the history of this expanse of lands—before and after the European invasion—with his energetic Latin jazz sound.”
- Black Oak Ensemble, “Avant l'orage: French String Trios 1926-1939” (2022) (127’): the works are Henri Tomasi, Trio à cordes en forme de divertissement; Jean Cras, String Trio (1926) (24’); Goué, String Trio; Jean Francaix, Trio (1933) (16’); Robert Casadesus, String Trio; Henri Samazeuilh, Suite en trio for Violin, Viola, and Cello; and Gabriele Pierné, Trois Pièces en trio (23’).
- Lincoln Trio has recorded two albums capturing Chicago’s busy energy: “Trios from Contemporary Chicago” (2022) (52’); and “Trios from the City of Big Shoulders” (2021) (68’) (the works are by Chicago-born composer Ernst Bacon: Piano Trio No. 2 and Piano Trio, H. 312).
- Craig Davis, “Tone Paintings: The Music of Dodo Marmarosa” (2022) (51’): “Michael 'Dodo' Marmarosa, bebop pianist, composer and arranger who retreated to his childhood home in Pittsburgh after years of touring with several major big bands . . . as well as leading his own bands in the 1940s due to mental health issues.” This album is a tribute to “an exceptionally talented pianist whose promising early career was cut short by the crushing weight of mental and emotional problems that proved too unbearable for him to overcome.”
- Martin van Hees, “Remgewogen” (2018) (52’), is an album inspired by the composers of the pieces. “Since (he was a Masters student, van Hees) showed a growing interest in these composers (represented on the disc). A desire to learn about their work, questioning how the composers imagined the playing style of their compositions. This important work paves the way for a unique and coherent sound throughout the album.” His quiet and sensitive guitar playing make it seem as though the artist had reached into their lives.
- Richard Beaudoin, Rohan de Saram & Neil Heyde, “Digital Memory and the Archive” (2023) (45’) consists of seven pieces after artists and composers.
- Anastasia Kobekina, “Venice” (2024) (72’): “Everyone has their own impressions of Venice. Those of the young Russian cellist Anastasia Kobekina, which inspired her Sony debut album, appear to centre more around dark lapping water and sinister shadows than colourful masked balls.”
- Hajda Banda, “Hajda!” (2023) (52’) “is a captivating journey into the rich musical traditions of the Podlasie region in eastern Poland, the western parts of Belarus, and Polesye on the Polish-Ukrainian-Belarusian border. The album showcases the band's commitment to preserving and innovating rural music from the borderlands, infusing it with their unique style and ideas.”
- Erland Cooper, “Hether Blether” (2020) (39’) is an ode to the land and people in the Orkney archipelago.
- Peixe e Limão, “Salta!” (2024) (45’): “The music is powerful and profound, sometimes lyrical. It tackles worldly and deeply human themes, far from delusions of grandeur. Unromantic love, migration without heroism, boredom, obsessive loneliness, tiredness.”
- Annika Hammer, “Till att säga hennes namn” (For to Say Her Name) (2025) (42’): “Traditional folk music is, of course, handed down from person to person and in that sense has no fixed and forever established form. Hammer thus becomes one of the bearers of tradition by putting her own stamp on the songs while lovingly passing on a rich heritage.”
Music: songs and other short pieces
- John Lennon, “Woman” (lyrics)
- Shawn Phillips, “Woman” (lyrics)
- Theobald Böhm, Andante pastorale, from “Souvenir des Alpes”
- Paul Simon, “In the Garden of Edie”
- Don McLean, “Vincent” (lyrics)
- Yungchen Lhamo, “You Are Beautiful”
Visual Arts
- Tania Guerrera, Basquiat (2006)
- Sir Henry Raeburn, Young Girl Holding Flowers
- Alexander Deyneka, Portrait of an Old Man (1916)
- Rembrandt van Rijn, Bust of a Bearded Old Man
- Guido Reni, Portrait of Old Woman (1630)
- Peter Paul Rubens, Old Woman (1616-18)
Film and Stage
- The Shop Around the Corner: a man and a woman long for their pen pals, who are each other
- Chimes at Midnight(Campanadas a medianoche): Orson Welles’ tribute to Shakespeare’s Falstaff, looking past the superficial wit and debauchery to “the tragic character beneath” the veneer
- The English Patient, abouta nurse who helps a wounded man face his memories
- Never On Sunday: affection(for a culture) as an aspect of appreciation
- Sexy Beast: a violent episode by one character against several other “heightens your sense of their characters' vulnerable humanity”
- Starman, on learning to appreciate an alien
- Stevie, a “very big, beautiful film about a restlessly rambunctious soul”, poetess Stevie Smith
- The River, Renoir’scinematic ode to India.
- Green Book: a gay, black pianist and a Bronx-Italian tough guy learn to appreciate each other, in the early 1960s
