Imaginary

Visual Arts

• Pierre-Auguste Renoir, Two Girls at the Piano (1892)

Music: Composers, artists, and major works

These Schubert piano sonatas demand careful attention from the performer and the listener.

• Schubert, Piano Sonata No. 7 in E flat major, Op. posth. 122, D. 568
• Schubert, Piano Sonata No. 13 in A major, Op. 120, D. 664
• Schubert, Piano Sonata No. 14 in A minor, Op. 143, D. 784 (“Grande Sonata”)
• Schubert, Piano Sonata No. 15 in C major, D. 840, “Relique”
• Schubert, Piano Sonata No. 16 in A minor, Op. 42, D. 845
• Schubert, Piano Sonata No. 17 in D major, Op. 53, D. 850, “Gasteiner”
• Schubert, Piano Sonata No. 18 in G major, Op. 78, D. 894

Compositions by Richard Dubugnon:

• Chamber Symphony No. 1, Op 63
• Chamber Symphony No. 2, Op. 77
• Klavieriana, Op. 70

Organ music sounds so very serious:

• Langlais, organ works (performed by Houbart, Massaglia and Leclerc)
• Louis Vierne, 6 organ symphonies
• Duruflé, Organ works

Other compositions:

• Feigin, Tuba Concerto
• Mucha, String Quartet No. 1
• Mucha, String Quartet No. 2
• Valentin Silvestrov, String Quartet No. 1 (1974)
• Raga Shahana Kanada (Shahana Kannada – Shahana Kanara – Shahana Kannara) is a Hindustani raag performed after midnight. “The North Indian (Hindustani) Shahana is not to be confused with the Carnatic Ragam Sahana (28th Melakarta, Harikamboji) as the treatment of the two is completely different  Shahana literally means “of royal demeanour” (Shahi) and while it shares the notes with Bageshri, it has a measured gait and approach.” Performances are by Vilayat Khan & Shujaat Khan, Shujaat Khan & Ananda Gopal Bandopadhyay, and Venkatesh Kumar.

Albums:

• Ballaké Sissoko, “A Touma”: “During these strange and paradoxical ‘solitary dialogues’, he makes his kora speak and reacts to the emotions it arouses in him, letting his imagination and his fingers fly off to landscapes that are both magnificent and unknown.”

Not so serious:

• John Frederick Lampe, The Dragon of Wentley (1737), a comic opera in which “the ‘hero’ is the inebriate, preposterously attired but ‘valiant’ Squire Moore, who saves a village from a rampaging, child-eating dragon by despatching the marauding beast with a well-aimed ‘Kick on the Back-side’.”