Imaginary

Visual Arts

• Victor Borusov-Musatov, May Flowers (1894)
• Frederic Edwin Church, The Andes of Ecuador (c. 1855)

Film and Stage

• The Man Who Wasn’t There: playing with the film noir idiom
• The Cider House Rules, a “fable about a young man's journey into the world, his loss of innocence and his acquiring of values that reflect the lessons learned on his journey”

Music: Composers, artists, and major works

Many composers have taken a theme, and constructed variations on it, thereby exploring the theme in many dimensions or from many perspectives.

• Bach produced the Goldberg Variations, BWV 988, from a simple melody. Here are links to complete performances on harpsichord by Hantaï and Picht-Axenfeld; and on piano by Gould (1955) and Nikolayeva.
• Beethoven crafted his 33 Variations in C on a waltz by Diabelli, Op. 120 (“Diabelli Variations”), from a thoroughly pedestrian waltz melody. Here are links to complete performances by Richter (1986), Rudolf Serkin and Sokolov.
• Brahms, 25 Variations and Fugue on a Theme by Handel, Op. 24 (1861).

Other compositions on the theme of blossoming

• Kenessey, The Passing “was written as a complement to the nine-minute black-and-white silent film based on the fairy tale by Christian Andersen”, tracing “a mother’s search for her lost infant.” Yet somehow her discoveries along the way inspired Kenessey to send another message through the music.
• Ben Johnston, String Quartet No. 9 (1988): the composer toys with earlier musical idioms to explore “how European music might have developed had it been freed of the constraints of equal temperament” [Bob Gilmore, program notes for an album of string quartets].
• Frescobaldi, Il primo libro di capricci (Capricci for organ) (1624)
• La Barre: Suite No. 2, Book 1, in G Major, for transverse flute
• Gouvy: Sinfonietta in D Major, Op. 80: 1. Adagio - Allegro; 2. Scherzo. Allegro; 3. Tema con variazioni. Andante; 4. Finale. Allegro.
• Dutilleux, Symphony No. 2, "Le Double" (1959)
• Hendrik Andriessen, Concertino for Oboe & String Orchestra (1970)
• Weber, Variations a Theme from Silvana, Op. 33

Albums:

• Joe Alexander Quintet, “Blue Jubilee”: from the blues came jazz
• Anthony Braxton, “20 Standards” 4-CD set and “23 Standards” 4-CD set, with Kevin O’Neil, Kevin Norton and Andy Eulau, illustrates the expansion of standard melodies into intricate jazz.

Poetry

Poems:

• Robert Frost, “Going for Water”
• Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, “May Song”
• Ralph Waldo Emerson, “The Rhondora”

Fictional Narratives

Little by little they began to talk to each other. Effusion followed silence, which is fulness. The night was serene and splendid overhead. These two beings, pure as spirits, told each other everything, their dreams, their intoxications, their ecstasies, their chimæras, their weaknesses, how they had adored each other from afar, how they had longed for each other, their despair when they had ceased to see each other. They confided to each other in an ideal intimacy, which nothing could augment, their most secret and most mysterious thoughts. They related to each other, with candid faith in their illusions, all that love, youth, and the remains of childhood which still lingered about them, suggested to their minds. Their two hearts poured themselves out into each other in such wise, that at the expiration of a quarter of an hour, it was the young man who had the young girl's soul, and the young girl who had the young man's soul. Each became permeated with the other, they were enchanted with each other, they dazzled each other. [Victor Hugo, Les Misérables (1862), Volume IV – Saint-Denis; Book Fifth – The End of Which Does Not Resemble the Beginning, Chapter VI, Old People Are Made to Go Out Opportunely.]

Novels:

• John Irving, The Cider House Rules: A Novel (1985).