Imaginary

Fictional Narratives

Novels:

• Jeffrey Eugenides, Middlesex: A Novel (Picador, 2002): born a female, Calliope undergoes a sex-change operation and becomes Cal at age fourteen, after discovering a genetic abnormality that resulted in his sexual ambiguity.
• Gregor von Rezzori, An Ermine in Czernopol (New York Review Books, 2012): “Laughter in Czernopol had been  elevated to an art form, a folk art of unparalleled authenticity . . .”
• Jeanette Winterson, Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit (Bloomsbury, 1991): reflecting the author’s strict Pentecostal upbringing, the novel tells of a young woman who finds and pursues her own path.
• Jeanette Winterson, The Passion (Atlantic Monthly Press, 1988), a lesbian author’s musings about a lesbian woman’s search for self in Napoleon’s time.
• Sheila Heti, Pure Color: A Novel (Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 2022): “. . . holds within it a taste of something that defies classification. As Heti writes: ‘There is something exciting about a first draft — anarchic, scrappy, full of life, flawed. A first draft has something that a second one has not.’ That something doesn’t always survive into the final product, but it is the artist’s purest self, unadulterated.”
• Jane Pek, The Verifiers: A Novel (Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group, 2022): “Are we surrendering to algorithms that know us better than we know ourselves? Are we trading our freedom of choice, thought, even desire, for convenience and fantasy? Are we becoming unable to tell, or even care, what’s real?”
• Jennifer Egan, The Candy House: A Novel (Scribner, 2022), “takes its title from a repeated metaphor for temptation: the lures of amusement and nostalgia that Hansel-and-Gretel us into a spun-sugar edifice upon which we are invited to gorge and in which we — our desires, our memories — are also on the menu.”
• Kristen Arnett, Stop Me If You’ve Heard This One: A Novel (Riverhead Books, 2025): “Throughout the novel, clowns are framed as a way to explore queer identity and gender expression. Bunko is after all a cowboy and is referred to with male pronouns, though Cherry is a woman and referred to with female pronouns. But the way that clowns are reviled by the public at large is also explicitly compared with the queer experience . . .”

Poetry

From the dark side:

• Edgar Lee Masters, “Amos Sibley”
• Edgar Lee Masters, “George Trimble”

Music: Composers, artists, and major works

In music, adherence to the composer’s intent is a form of authenticity. In addition, a grounding in the music’s idiom also makes performance seem authentic. Adrian Boult was a British conductor whose output was authentic in both ways. Here is a link to his playlists.

Joaquín Rodrigo, Concierto de Aranjuez (1939) (approx. 24-28’): “Its music seems to bring to life the essence of an eighteenth-century court, where aristocratic distinction blends with popular culture. In its melody the perfume of magnolias lingers, the singing of birds and the gushing of fountains.” “In summer, the Aranjuez gardens are beautiful, indeed. But such is the lure of Joaquín Rodrigo’s music that nowadays one cannot walk through its leafy avenues without thinking of the Aranjuez. The composer has mesmerized the world with his wonderful inspiration, and made Aranjuez his very own.” “'It should sound like the hidden breeze that stirs the treetops in the parks, as strong as a butterfly, as dainty as a verónica [a classic pass in bullfighting],' is how the composer described his concerto.” Top recorded performances are by de la Maza (Argenta) in 1948; Yepes (Alonso) in 1969; Bream (Gardiner) in 1974; de Lucia (Colomer) in 1991; Pepe Romero (Marriner) in 1992 ***; Kraft (Ward) in 1992; Barreuco (Domingo) in 1995; Ogden (Fujioka) in 1997; and Gallén (Valdés) in 2001.

Gioachino Rossini, Il Barbieri de Siviglia (The Barber of Seville) (1816) (approx. 141-175’) (libretto) “is one of the more purely entertaining evenings to be had in an opera house. No dying; no historical indignities; no goddesses or gods deciding the fate of humanity. There isn’t even any (actual) disease or (genuine) heartbreak or (mean-spirited) deception. It is an archetype of opera buffa—from the Italian buffo, meaning funny or amusing or, in musical terms, comic—where everyone, even the antagonist, ends up smiling and singing together.” Usually the young are drawn to the young. Live performances with video are conducted by Pappano in 2022, Pidò in 2019, Fogliani in 2008, Palumbo in 2005, and Abbado in 1972. Top recorded performances are by: Gobbi & Callas (Serafin) in 1957; Alva & de los Angeles (Gui) in 1963; Prey & Berganza (Abbado) in 1971; Nucci & Bartoli (Patanè) in 1988; and Flórez & DiDonato (Pappano) in 2022.

Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky’s songs are authentically Russian (lyrics to various songs):

• 6 Romances, Op. 6 (1869) (approx. 17’) (lyrics and other information)
• 6 Romances, Op. 16 (1872) (approx. 16’) (lyrics and other information)
• 6 Romances, Op. 25 (1874) (approx. 23’) (lyrics and other information)
• 6 Romances, Op. 27 (1875) (approx. 19’) (lyrics and other information)
• 6 Romances, Op. 28 (1875) (approx. 22’) (lyrics and other information)
• 6 Romances, Op. 38 (1878) (approx. 22’) (lyrics and other information)
• 7 Romances, Op. 47 (1880) (approx. 32’) (lyrics and other information; also here)
• 6 Romances, Op. 57 (1884) (approx. 18’) (lyrics and other information)
• 12 Romances, Op. 60 (1886) (approx. 36’) (lyrics and other information)
• 6 Romances after K. Romanov, Op. 63 (1887) (approx. 16’) (lyrics and other information)
• 6 French Songs, Op. 65 (1886) (approx. 16’) (lyrics and other information)
• 6 Romances after D. Rathaus, Op. 73 (1893) (approx. 16’) (lyrics and other information)

Arnold Cooke: “Little . . . is said about the music of the three sonatas themselves. Perhaps that's for the best as without undue analysis the music is allowed to speak for itself.”

• Sonata No. 2 for Violin and Piano, D. 53 (1951) (approx. 22’)
• Sonata for Viola and Piano, D. 20 (1937) (approx. 21’)
• Sonata No. 2 for Cello and Piano, D. 144 (1980) (approx. 24-28’)

Other works:

• John Foulds, String Quartet No. 9, "Quartetto Intimo", Op. 89 (1931) (approx. 33’): most likely, the title refers not to intimacy but to the composer being himself musically, going deep within himself.
• Nicolai Myaskovsky, Eccentricities, Op. 25 (1922) (approx. 14’)
• Francis Poulenc, Flute Sonata, FP 164 (1957) (approx. 12’): “The Flute Sonata is as typical of Poulenc as anything he ever wrote, combining as it does elegant charm and brashness, and embodying a disarming combination of innocence and sophistication and a naturalness that seems to stem directly from the boulevard cafés.”

Artists and some of their albums:

• Gato Barbieri, “Priceless Jazz 9” (1997) (50’) and “El Pampero” (1971) (42’): Barbieri play-growls in his own voice.
• Ran Blake, “Painted Rhythms: The Compleat Ran Blake”, Volume 1 (1985) (47’) and Volume 2 (1985) (38’): “The two albums comprising Painted Rhythms: The Compleat Ran Blake follow Blake’s essential vision through his own compositions as well as interpretations of musics ranging from the jazz standards of Duke Ellington and Jerome Kern and of Scott Joplin rags of Volume 1 to the ancient Sephardic folk tunes and contemporary Spanish art songs that form the heart of Volume 2.”
• Betty Carter: “Feed the Fire” (1993) (73’); “Look What I Got!” (1987) (48’); “The Audience with Betty Carter” (1979) (91’); “The Betty Carter Album” (1971) (39’); and “Finally” (1969) (56’): Carter employed a “methodical 'vocally instrumental' approach to jazz”. “For nearly 50 years, Betty Carter was an irrepressible and incomparable practitioner of the jazz vocal tradition, with an intense, adventurous style and a booming voice.”
• Clarence “Gatemouth” Brown, “Pressure Cooker” (1984) (41’) “capture(s) a snapshot of an artist’s sonic picture without the bells and whistles. Genuine, authentic music from a master musician!” [Downbeat magazine, September 2021, p. 39.]
• Dee Dee Bridgewater: “Memphis . . . Yes, I’m Ready” (2017) (62’), “Dee Dee’s Feathers” (2015) (67’), “Dee Dee Bridgewater” (1975) (36’), and “Afro Blue” (1975) (41’)
• Teunis van der Zwart and Alexander Melnikov, “Horn & Piano: A Cor Basse Recital” (2022) (76’): the artists play period instruments, a natural horn and a fortepiano, displaying them with fidelity to the composers’ intentions.
• Zela Margossian Quintet, “The Road” (2022) (46’): “. . . she produces a highly original and authentic approach, drawing on two cultures that are close to her.”
• On “Straight Ahead” (1961) (39’), jazz singer Abbey Lincoln sang more to express herself, and less as chanteuse.
• Tania Giannouli, “Solo” (2023) (72’): “Alone on a stage, one is compelled to be truthful, not to hold back or fake anything, and to allow yourself to be vulnerable.” [Giannouli, from the liner notes]
• Bholoja, “Imphilo” (2023) (70’)
• Broadside Hacks, “Songs Without Authors, Vol. 1” (2021) (67’): “The concept for ‘Songs Without Authors Vol.1’ features re-works of traditional songs with no set origin, where either the song or the lyrics has no known author. It is a way to return to how folk music existed before the Victorian song collectors began putting everything down on paper and codifying the tradition. Indeed, it is bringing life back into the songs, making them live and breathe again, within the singer’s own right.”
• Miguel Atwood-Ferguson, “Les Jardins Mystique, Vol. 1” (2023) (211’): “. . . showcases a rotating cast of approximately 60 musicians, playing 52 original compositions across three discs or four LPs.  ‘It was my chance to let people know really what I do,’ Atwood-Ferguson explained about the sheer size of his leader debut. “‘This album is me trying to be authentic. I’m not expecting everybody to understand this album or even listen to 20% of it; it’s meant to be enjoyed either by one track at a time or listening to it throughout. But I gave myself the green light to do me.’”
• Jenn Butterworth, “Her By Design” (2025) (39’) “is a feminist statement – amplifying women’s voices in folk music. She will not be silenced, choosing to challenge traditional narratives – by voicing alternative versions of women’s storytelling.”

Music: songs and other short pieces

• Dolly Parton, “Wildflowers” (lyrics)
• Diana Ross, “I’m Coming Out” (lyrics)
• Doug MacLeod, “Be What You Is”
• Enigma, “Return to Innocence” (lyrics)

Visual Arts

Film and Stage

• A Room With a View, about a young woman who overcomes Victorian constraints and learns to live passionately, and the young man who brings her out of her shell
• Taking a completely approach to the same theme, A Letter to Three Wives teases out an answer to the question “whose husband leaves her”: the gold-digger who is love but guarded, the woman who has compromised her intelligence to write for commercial radio or the perpetually insecure girl off the farm?
• I Know Where I’m Going explores the same theme as in “A Room With a View” from a different angle
• Big Night, about restaurateurs who try to do it the right way
• Holiday: a man chooses love over money
• & Mrs. Bridge, about a woman who allows herself to be buried under her husband’s thumb
• The Awful Truth, a screwball about a married couple, neither of whom is very good at fooling themselves, or each other