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 Sunday of Week 13 in the season of Sowing
Hoping
From the bleak mid-winter of our souls, we emerge into hope. When we hope, we look to the future, as we wish it to be.
- It’s utterly impossible for me to build my life on a foundation of chaos, suffering and death. I see the world being slowly transformed into a wilderness, I hear the approaching thunder that, one day, will destroy us too, I feel the suffering of millions. And yet, when I look up at the sky, I somehow feel that everything will change for the better, that this cruelty too will end, that peace and tranquility will return once more. In the meantime, I must hold on to my ideals. Perhaps the day will come when I’ll be able to realize them! [Anne Frank, The Diary of a Young Girl., July 15, 1944]
- Do we participate in a politics of cynicism or a politics of hope? . . . It’s the hope of slaves sitting around a fire singing freedom songs; the hope of immigrants setting out for distant shores; the hope of a young naval lieutenant bravely patrolling the Mekong Delta; the hope of a millworker’s son who dares to defy the odds; the hope of a skinny kid with a funny name who believes that America has a place for him, too. The audacity of hope! [Barack Obama, July 27, 2004.]
- Hope is being able to see that there is light despite all of the darkness. [attributed to Desmond Tutu]
- We must accept our unwanted and unfortunate circumstance and yet cling to a radiant hope. The answer lies in developing the capacity to accept the finite disappointment and yet cling to the infinite hope. [Martin Luther King, Jr.]
- Learn from yesterday, live for today, hope for tomorrow. [attributed to Albert Einstein]
Hope expresses a desire. It is defined in several ways.
- “Hope is a trait that represents the capacity to identify strategies or pathways to achieve goals and the motivation or agency to effectively pursue those pathways. Hope has been demonstrated to be a robust source of resilience to anxiety and stress . . .”
- “Hope is the emotional feeling experienced when a desired outcome happens with a positive probability. . . a behavioral definition of preference for hope . . . requires the decision maker to have two behavioral patterns: hope preservation by delaying the resolution of uncertainty, and hope-seeking by taking risk.”
- Others define hope as “a cognitive set that is composed of a reciprocally derived sense of successful (1) agency (goal-directed determination) and (2) pathways (planning of ways to meet goals) . . .”
- “Hope is a positive outlook on life experienced by us all at times, though it is not a permanent state of mind like optimism . . .” Dissenters might argue that hope is often directed toward one thing, while optimism is an overall attitude.
Unlike Faith, hope is not an action, though many people see it as a factor that predisposes people to act. “Unlike optimism, which is simply the expectation of a better future, hope is action-oriented and a skill that can be learned.” “Hope is not only an attitude that has cognitive components—it is responsive to facts about the possibility and likelihood of future events. It also has a conative component—hopes are different from mere expectations insofar as they reflect and draw upon our desires.”
In Chingall’s focus theory of hope, an element of hope “is a disposition to focus on the desired outcome in a certain way.” In this framework, hope is an attitude, not merely a desire, which implies that the hopeful person is poised to act. When people process and express hope that way, it is a catalyst for growth and change.
For individuals, hope yields many mental health and other life benefits.
- “How people perceive the future appears to greatly influence how they behave and experience their current situation . . . although greater hopes usually go hand-in-hand with higher subjective well-being levels, we should be mindful of the nuances of this relation.”
- “. . . hope promotes overall mental health and may help heal specific conditions, including severe mental illness, suicidal ideation, depression, anxiety and trauma-related disorders . . . hope promotes wellbeing more than optimism or self-efficacy . . . hope has strong associations with several psychosocial process and outcomes, including positive affect, emotional adjustment and illness-related coping, greater life satisfaction, enhanced perceptions that life is meaningful, a higher sense of purpose in life, quality of life, and social support . . .”
- “Higher hope corresponds with superior academic and athletic performance, greater physical and psychological well-being, and enhanced interpersonal relationships.”
- “Hope predicts increases in well-being in students, children, adolescents, and adults of different ages. This effect is seen across several ethnic groups and clinical populations.”
Hope conveys societal benefits too. In a review of pertinent scholarly literature: “Hope was positively related to variables such as social support seeking, altruism, community and social participation, and acting in favor of helping others.” “Hope may be the antidote to today’s chaotic world.” “Perceptions of a Changing World Induce Hope and Promote Peace in Intractable Conflicts”.
Hope can be trained, taught, and learned. There are many pathways by which people can learn hope.
People need hope, especially when our situation seems impossible. We are challenged to maintain our connection to reality as we strive to expand what that reality might be, and elevate it.
Real
True Narratives
- Rania Abouzeid, No Turning Back: Life, Loss, and Hope in Wartime Syria (W.W. Norton & Company, 2018): “Her narrative of the unending Syrian war from 2011 through 2016 and into 2017 offers page after page of extraordinary reporting and many flashes of exquisitely descriptive prose. But it is the characters around whom the story is built who make the book unforgettable, as Abouzeid threads together their stories of hope and loss in a country where ‘the dead are not merely nameless, reduced to figures. They are not even numbers.’”
- Andrea Elliott, Invisible Child: Poverty, Survival and Hope in an American City (Random House, 2021): “Dasani’s charm contrasted brutally with her degrading and dangerous surroundings.”
- Abe Streep, Brothers on Three: A True Story of Family, Resistance, and Hope on a Reservation in Montana (Celadon Books, 2021): “. . . journalist Abe Streep follows the Arlee Warriors, a Montana high school team that embodies the high-speed, whip-pass, all-for-one spirit of reservation basketball. Streep follows the Warriors through a historic season, but his real interest lies in the lives of the players and their families on the Flathead Indian Reservation, along with the network of coaches, teachers and friends who invest so much of themselves in this scrappy, mighty basketball team.”
- Adam Potkay, Hope: A Literary History (Cambridge University Press, 2022).
- Halina Birenbaum, Hope is the Last to Die: A Coming of Age Under Nazi Terror (1967).
- Amanda Nguyen, Saving Five: A Memoir of Hope (AUWA, 2025): “Nguyen’s narrative cuts back and forth in time, from her childhood growing up with a violently abusive father, to the landmark moment in 2016 when the Survivors’ Bill of Rights Act was passed in Washington, to the vantage point of the adult Amanda, who eventually becomes an astronaut. Throughout, the author’s central task is to bring her disparate selves back into a coherent whole.”
Technical and Analytical Readings
- Stan van Hooft, Hope: The Art of Living (Routledge, 2014).
- John T. Lysaker, Hope, Trust, and Forgiveness: Essays in Finitude (University of Chicago Press, 2023).
- Oded Adomi Leshem, ed., Hope Amidst Conflict: Philosophical and Psychological Explorations (Oxford University Press, 2024).
- Michael S. Arthur, Embracing Hope After Traumatic Brain Injury: Finding Eden (Routledge, 2022).
- Andreas M. Krafft, Our Hopes, Our Future: Insights from the Hope Barometer (Springer, 2023).
- Andreas M. Krafft, Tharina Guse & Alena Slezackova, eds., Hope across cultures: Lessons from the International Hope Barometer (Springer, 2023).
- Andreas M. Krafft, Pasqualina Perrig-Chiello & Andreas M. Walker, eds., Hope for a Good Life: Results of the Hope-Barometer International Research Program (Springer, 2018).
- Steven C. van den Heuvel, ed., Historical and Multidisciplinary Perspectives on Hope (Springer, 2020).
- Andrew J. Howell & Denise J. Larsen, Understanding Other-Oriented Hope: An Integral Concept Within Hope Studies (Springer, 2015).
From the dark side:
- Jonathan Lear, Radical Hope: Ethics in the Face of Cultural Devastation (Harvard University Press, 2006) is about loss of hope and meaning in a Native American tribe after being confined to a reservation.
- Terry Eagleton, Hope without Optimism (University of Virginia Press, 2015).
Photographs
Documentary and Educational Films
Imaginary
Fictional Narratives
Cosette may never see Marius again. Nevertheless:
Cosette had slept only a few hours, but soundly. She had had sweet dreams, which possibly arose from the fact that her little bed was very white. Some one, who was Marius, had appeared to her in the light. She awoke with the sun in her eyes, which, at first, produced on her the effect of being a continuation of her dream. Her first thought on emerging from this dream was a smiling one. Cosette felt herself thoroughly reassured. Like Jean Valjean, she had, a few hours previously, passed through that reaction of the soul which absolutely will not hear of unhappiness. She began to cherish hope, with all her might, without knowing why. Then she felt a pang at her heart. It was three days since she had seen Marius. But she said to herself that he must have received her letter, that he knew where she was, and that he was so clever that he would find means of reaching her.--And that certainly to-day, and perhaps that very morning.--It was broad daylight, but the rays of light were very horizontal; she thought that it was very early, but that she must rise, nevertheless, in order to receive Marius. She felt that she could not live without Marius, and that, consequently, that was sufficient and that Marius would come. No objection was valid. All this was certain. It was monstrous enough already to have suffered for three days. Marius absent three days, this was horrible on the part of the good God. Now, this cruel teasing from on high had been gone through with. Marius was about to arrive, and he would bring good news. Youth is made thus; it quickly dries its eyes; it finds sorrow useless and does not accept it. Youth is the smile of the future in the presence of an unknown quantity, which is itself. It is natural to it to be happy. It seems as though its respiration were made of hope. [Victor Hugo, Les Miserables (1862), Volume V – Jean Valjean; Book First – The War Between Four Walls, Chapter X, “Dawn”.]
In this fairy tale, a girl’s companion - a boy named Kay - has disappeared.
. . . what became of little Gerda when Kay did not return? Where could he be? Nobody knew; nobody could give any intelligence. All the boys knew was, that they had seen him tie his sledge to another large and splendid one, which drove down the street and out of the town. Nobody knew where he was; many sad tears were shed, and little Gerda wept long and bitterly; at last she said he must be dead; that he had been drowned in the river which flowed close to the town. Oh! those were very long and dismal winter evenings! At last spring came, with its warm sunshine. “Kay is dead and gone!” said little Gerda. “That I don't believe,” said the Sunshine. “Kay is dead and gone!” said she to the Swallows. “That I don't believe,” said they: and at last little Gerda did not think so any longer either. “I'll put on my red shoes,” said she, one morning; “Kay has never seen them, and then I'll go down to the river and ask there.” [Hans Christian Andersen, “The Snow Queen” (1844).]
Other novels:
- Katherine Marsh, Nowhere Boy: A Novel (Roaring Book Press, 2018), “tells the story of Ahmed Nasser, a Syrian teenager who flees his home to escape the civil war that killed his sisters, mother and grandfather.”
- Michael Cunningham, The Snow Queen: A Novel (Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 2014): “Many things happen in this book, yet its prose is unhurried and sensuous. ‘The Snow Queen’ takes hold of you in a manner that feels almost primal, the way a fragrance wafts into a room and changes your mood, before you even realize it.”
- Leah Hager Cohen, The Grief of Others: A Novel (Riverhead Books, 2011): “Ricky, who is generally the least tender of the characters, is unable to let the baby leave her arms during his short life. She drives home our ability, even our need, to love without reason, to attach to something small and doomed simply because it exists.”
- Shalom Auslander, Hope: A Tragedy: A Novel (Riverhead Books, 2012): “. . . Auslander’s novel embodies its own kind of unbearability: unbearable hilarity alternating with, at times, unbearable pain.”
- Dierdre McNamer, Aviary: A Novel (Milkweed, 2021): the theme is ongoingness, set in a retirement home.
- Marilynne Robinson, Jack: A Novel (Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 2020): about a minister’s troubled son.
- Lily King, Writers & Lovers: A Novel (Grove Press, 2020): “A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Woman on the Road to Happiness”.
- Pedro Mairal, The Woman from Uruguay: A Novel (Bloomsbury, 2021): “Our reviewer, Ratik Asokan, wasn’t enamored of the book — “an unfocused, lopsided story that packs far too much into 150 pages,” he wrote - but editors here appreciated how Mairal veers from hope to despair in a provocative, often darkly funny narration that strikes a clever balance between midlife-crisis story and noir.”
- Jabari Asim, Yonder: A Novel (Simon & Schuster, 2022): “Yonder is an old word, originating in the 1300s, meaning a place that is distant but within sight. It’s almost in reach but not quite close enough to grasp. It’s a beacon of hope — you’re not there yet, but you’ve only got a little farther to go.”
- Douglas Stuart, Young Mungo: A Novel (Grove Press, 2022): “A Booker Prize Winner Takes On First Love and — Just Maybe — Hope”.
“Sixteen-year-old girls with cancer are the heroines” in these two novels for young adults:
- John Green, The Fault in Our Stars (Dutton Books, 2012).
- Wendy Wunder, The Probability of Miracles (Razorbill, 2012).
From the dark side:
Since she had been there, she had neither waked nor slept. In that misfortune, in that cell, she could no longer distinguish her waking hours from slumber, dreams from reality, any more than day from night. All this was mixed, broken, floating, disseminated confusedly in her thought. She no longer felt, she no longer knew, she no longer thought; at the most, she only dreamed. Never had a living creature been thrust more deeply into nothingness. Thus benumbed, frozen, petrified, she had barely noticed on two or three occasions, the sound of a trapdoor opening somewhere above her, without even permitting the passage of a little light, and through which a hand had tossed her a bit of black bread. Nevertheless, this periodical visit of the jailer was the sole communication which was left her with mankind. A single thing still mechanically occupied her ear; above her head, the dampness was filtering through the mouldy stones of the vault, and a drop of water dropped from them at regular intervals. She listened stupidly to the noise made by this drop of water as it fell into the pool beside her. This drop of water falling from time to time into that pool, was the only movement which still went on around her, the only clock which marked the time, the only noise which reached her of all the noise made on the surface of the earth. To tell the whole, however, she also felt, from time to time, in that cesspool of mire and darkness, something cold passing over her foot or her arm, and she shuddered. [Victor Hugo, Notre-Dame de Paris, or, The Hunchback of Notre Dame (1831), Volume II, Book Eighth, Chapter IV, “Lasciate Ogni Speranza – Leave All Hope Behind, Ye Who Enter Here”.]
Valjean is taking Cosette far away. This scene presents Marius’ despair, the opposite of hope:
The voice which had summoned Marius through the twilight to the barricade of the Rue de la Chanvrerie, had produced on him the effect of the voice of destiny. He wished to die; the opportunity presented itself; he knocked at the door of the tomb, a hand in the darkness offered him the key. These melancholy openings which take place in the gloom before despair, are tempting. Marius thrust aside the bar which had so often allowed him to pass, emerged from the garden, and said: "I will go." [Victor Hugo, Les Miserables (1862), Volume IV – Saint-Denis; Book Thirteenth – Marius Enters the Shadow, Chapter I, “From the Rue Plumet to the Quartier Saint-Denis”.]
Other novels, from the dark side:
- Ruby Todd, Bright Objects: A Novel (Simon & Schuster, 2024): “It is . . . a slow-burn meditation on grief, hope, mortality and what Joseph promises are ‘the laws of cosmic synchronicity.’ Sylvia vacillates between quiet rage at the man she believes killed Christopher and an almost preternatural calm as she considers the world she is about to leave — while also trying to make room for her feelings for Theo, who provides her with the ‘opium of intimacy.’”
Poetry
Hope is the thing with feathers
That perches in the soul,
And sings the tune without the words,
And never stops at all,
And sweetest in the gale is heard;
And sore must be the storm
That could abash the little bird
That kept so many warm.
I've heard it in the chillest land,
And on the strangest sea;
Yet, never, in extremity,
It asked a crumb of me.
[Emily Dickinson, “’Hope’ Is the Thing With Feathers”]
Other poems:
- Maya Angelou, “A Plagued Journey”
- John Keats, “To Hope”
- Thomas Hardy, “The Darkling Thrush”
Music: Composers, artists, and major works
Ralph Vaughan Williams, The Lark Ascending (1914) (approx. 15-17’) (list of recorded performances) is “based on a lovely British poem from the 1880s that describes an English skylark in flight.” Top performances feature Hugh Bean, Iona Brown, Nigel Kennedy, Hilary Hahn, Tasmin Little, Jennifer Pike, and Johan Dalene.
English choral music in the Romantic and into the Modern era is characteristically affirmational, yet serious in tone. “One of the reasons choral culture was so prevalent in Great Britain at the beginning of the 20th century was because by the second half of the 19th century encouraging singing had become a kind of paternalistic moral philanthropy. Musical leaders, such as John Curwen, promoted music by teaching singing to the working and middle classes as a leisure-time activity that was deemed ‘distracting’ (in the best sense of the word), ‘healthy’, and ‘rational’. Group choral singing was thought to create strong social bonds, and undergoing such pursuits, the singer would not have time (or as much time) to engage in other, more problematic behaviours, like drinking, smoking or gambling.” It was a way of giving people hope. Among the greatest composers in this genre are:
Other compositions:
- Franz Schubert, String Quartet No. 8 in B-flat major, D. 112 (1814) (approx. 26-30’) (list of recorded performances): “. . . the entire quartet has a certain sameness of tone, that sort of slightly somber tranquillity from the second movement, which hints to Schubert's serious approach to the work. The final Presto, finished on September 13, tries as best it can to shed that heavy cloak by its spirited and brisk composure. Remarkably, it also anticipates certain elements of his ‘Great' C major Symphony.”
- Aaron Jay Kernis, Air for Violin and Orchestra (1996) (approx. 12’): “Air is a love letter to the violin. Songlike and lyrical, it opens up a full range of the instrument's expressive and poignant possibilities.”
- Stefania de Kenessey, Shades of Darkness, for clarinet quintet (approx. 29’), begins with brooding and agitation, turns tense but winds its way to “a great outburst of pent-up energy,” according to the composer.
- Leoš Janáček, Violin Sonata, JW7/7 (1914) (approx. 16-17’) (list of recorded performances), evokes the hope of being liberated (the background was Czechoslovakia during World War I).
- Orlando Gibbons, Hymnes & Songs of the Church: Songs of Hope
- Judith Lang Zaimont, Meditations at the Time of the New Year (1997) (approx. 13’): the two movements are “Dawn” and “Hope”.
- Raga Gaud Sarang, a Hindustani classical raag for early afternoon, usually evokes a hopeful and energetic mood. Performances are by Nikhil Banerjee, Kishori Amonkar, Purbayan Chaterjee, Ulhas Kashalkar, and Ali Akbar Khan.
- Raga Misra Kafi (Mishra Kafi) is a Hindustani classical raag for late evening. Performances are by Nikhil Banerjee and Budhaditya Mukherjee.
- Mieczysław Weinberg, Symphony No. 2 for string orchestra, Op. 30 (1946) (approx. 34’) (list of recorded performances), offers glimmers of hope peeking out through powerlessness. The symphony’s mood meshes with the end for World War II.
- Žibuoklė Martinaitytė, Ex tenebris lux (2021) (approx. 24’): “The Latin title of this piece translates as ‘from darkness comes light.’ For me this saying seems to symbolize some hopeful thought in the face of the current pandemic and the uncertainty arising from it. To have and to hold onto that ray of light emitted by your inner compass without loosing sight of it even in the darkest moments... My wish was that this music would guide the listener through a prolonged zone of darkness, ultimately bringing them to light and allowing them to experience it.”
- George Enescu, Fantaisie for Piano and Orchestra (1896) (approx. 20’)
- Bob Chilcott, Canticles of Light (1999) (approx. 16’) is a triptych: the first two parts ask for protection, the third looks forward to a new day.
- Paul Ben-Haim, Symphony No. 2 (1945) (approx. 46-50’) “was completed in October 1945 when World War II was over. On the title page of the autograph Ben-Haim wrote a motto from a poem by Israeli poet Sh. Shalom, ‘Wake up with the dawn, O my soul, on the peak of the Carmel above the sea’.”
Albums:
- Joseph Tawadros, “Hope in an Empty City” (2021) (78’) “has mediative serene tracks, some gorgeous solo oud and some of the highest energy music he’s ever produced.” “Before COVD hit, I ventured into a New York studio with four innovative musicians and we came up with some solid, quite surprising tracks – flavoured with Middle Eastern and jazz elements – and creating a lush, spacious organic sound . . .”
- Kate McGarry & Keith Ganz Ensemble, “What to Wear in the Dark” (2021) (62’): “The drive to beat back despair, whether it’s the social pressure bearing down in Steely Dan’s ‘Barrytown’ or the passing of a lifestyle in the Eagles’ 'Desperado,' animates this exceptional album.”
- Mahsa Vahdat & Marjan Vahdat, “Twinklings of Hope” (2011) (66’): “Born in Tehran in the 1970s, Mahsa and Marjan Vahdat are sisters, who give fully-public concerts in many countries, but not in their own land.”
- Soweto Gospel Choir, “Hope” (2022) (54’) is “. . . dedicated to recognizing Black lives globally, through songs of struggle from the civil rights movement in the U.S. to the anti-apartheid movement in South Africa and Namibia.”
- Mohammad Motamedi & Rembrandt Frerichs Trio, “Intizar” (2023) (56’): “symbolizes the hope for a new era, most likely directed at Iran.”
- Igor Kalnin, “Ascending Light” (2023) (58’): “Violinist Igor Kalnin references Emily Dickinson's poem, Hope is the thing with feathers, as capturing the spirit he wanted to express with this recording.”
- Arun Ghosh, “Seclused in Light” (2022) (70’): “. . . this double album is Ghosh’s lockdown record and the large amount of music reflects a certain gravitas and desire to make a statement on the nature of mortality and mourning as well as resilience in the faces of loss . . .”
- Saba Alizadeh, “Temple of Hope” (2025) (38’): “Heroism is seldom born in times of peace and justice, but rather out of the inevitable necessity for resistance against the powers that be. Given the dystopian playbook unfolding in shocking blatancy before our eyes that statement sounds like a horribly accurate, global political weather forecast. An age of (more) oppression, murder - and thus also heroes - ahead. Yet against all odds, right amidst the epicentre of one storm raging in September 2022, composer and musician Saba Alizadeh refused to only see the dark when he began to build his Temple of Hope.”
- Wu Man, “Music for Hope” (2022) (36’): “The broader purpose of the project is to reflect and support the AAPI (Asian-American and Pacific Islander) movement and raise awareness of its struggle, serving as a sometimes meditational, often polyrhythmic soundtrack to the contemplation of the hope for restoration of harmony (between India, China and other countries and cultures) amid the discord created by discrimination, victimization and violence.”
From the dark side:
Béla Bartók composed six anxiety-ridden string quartets (top recorded performances) (list of recorded performances):
- String Quartet No. 1 in A Minor, Op. 7, Sz. 40, BB 52 (1908) (approx. 30’) (list of recorded performances): “The music moves from a very slow opening movement through a second movement marked Allegretto and on to a very fast finale that grows even faster in its closing moments.” This quartet can be seen “as an exciting trajectory not only within the piece itself (three movements leading away from sorrow and grief into a brighter, more mature-sounding confidence) but also as a turning point in the composer’s output . . .”
- String Quartet No. 2 in A Minor, Op. 17, Sz. 67, BB (1917) (approx. 27’) (list of recorded performances) begins in atonality, and ends with a funereal final movement. Its “context is sort of something that people have at least some concept of, the effects of World War I on Europe, and the world, but on a personal level, Bartók’s personality, his relationship with his country and its music.”
- String Quartet No. 3 in C-sharp Minor, Sz. 85, BB 93 (1927) (approx. 15-16’) (list of recorded performances): At its beginning, the music is “filled with an energy to try moving in many possible directions. In this later incarnation, the energy is spent, desolate; appropriately for a recapitulation, the music seems to reminisce, to look brokenly backwards rather than forwards. Then, just when the point of utter stillness is upon us, we are swept by some invisible source of energy into the whirling, ghostly music of the Coda. This final, brief section is a return to the vitality of the Second Part, recapping its materials in a yet more intense and effervescent manner, punctuated by gruff refrains and seismic slides, and culminating in a final salvo of brusque unison gestures, an energetic affirmation of life.”
- String Quartet No. 4 in C Major, Sz. 91, BB 95 (1928) (approx. 23’) (list of recorded performances) is widely considered to be “one of Bartók’s greatest masterpieces . . .” “As with Bach’s counterpoint, we are drawn into a cosmic dialogue in which there are no extraneous notes. As with Beethoven, the music develops organically through dense, compact motifs. As with the rule-breaking Debussy, sonorities are infused with expressive meaning.”
- String Quartet No. 5 in B-flat Major, Sz. 102, BB 110 (1934) (approx. 30’) (list of recorded performances), “is a captivating emotional roller-coaster. You never know what is coming next.” “Toward the end, where we would expect a climax, the action stops for what sounds like a mildly out-of-whack carousel: the lower parts take up a frivolous tune in A (actually a variant of a theme already heard in the movement) and the first violin comes in with the same tune in B-flat, oblivious to the clash. The players are directed to play ‘with indifference.’”
- String Quartet No. 6 in D Minor, Sz. 114, BB 119 (1939) (approx. 29’) (list of recorded performances), “was written in early 1939, at a very dark time in his personal life and in history.” “Bartók wrote the sixth string quartet in 1939 on the eve of the catastrophes of the Second World War. The most visible feature of the quartet's construction is the use of Mesto (Sad) at the opening of each of the movements.”
Other works on the dark side:
- Einojuhani Rautavaara, The House of the Sun (1989) (approx. 84’), is an opera that alludes to imaginary survivors of Russia’s last tsar. It is an allegory of decline and despair.
- Kalevi Aho, Rejoicing of the Deep Waters (Syvien vesien juhla) (1995) (approx. 11’): a woman drowns herself but a boy whose father had also committed suicide finds meaning and purpose in life.
- Mark Buller, Requiem in the Light (2025) (approx. 20-22’) is “an expression of anguish and hope in the face of genocide and other existential threats.”
Music: songs and other short pieces
- Yungchen Lhamo, “Good Times Will Come”
- Maria Pomianowska Project, “Chinese Song ‘Hope’”
- Wilson Phillips, “Hold On” (lyrics)
- Franz Schubert (composer), Hoffnung (Hope), D. 295 (1815) (lyrics).
From the dark side:
- Henrik Skram (composer), “The Dinner” (2019): a husband fatally poisons his wife and himself
- Franz Joseph Haydn (composer), “Despair”, Hob. XXVIa:28 (1794) (lyrics)
Visual Arts
- Mikhail Nesterov, Capri. Almond Trees in Blossom (1908)
- Gustav Klimt, Hope II (1907)
- Gustav Klimt, Hope I (1903)
- Lawrence Alma-Tadema, Between Hope and Fear (1876)
- Karl Bryullov, Hope Feeding Love (1824)
- Peter Bruegel the Elder, Hope (c. 1560)
- Giotto, Hope (1306)
- Oskar Kokoschka, Fear and Hope (1914)
- Frida Kahlo, Without Hope (1945)
Film and Stage
On the shadow side:
- Days of Heaven: a story about a teenage girl whose “hope and cheer” have been beaten out of her
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