Imaginary

Film and Stage

• Rain Man: a conniving, self-centered man develops fellow-feeling for his half-brother, an idiot savant who has been left their father’s entire fortune; the film points out that the “normal” brother also suffers from a disability
• Blow-Up, a film that “has something real to say about the matter of personal involvement and emotional commitment in a jazzed-up, media-hooked-in world so cluttered with synthetic stimulations that natural feelings are overwhelmed”

Music: Composers, artists, and major works

A sweet and tender gestalt sense, shared among the players, characterizes Mozart’s string quartets.

• String Quartet No. 1 in G major, K. 80/73f, “Lodi”
• String Quartet No. 2 in D major, K. 155/134a
• String Quartet No. 3 in G major, K. 156/134b
• String Quartet No. 4 in C major, K. 157
• String Quartet No. 5 in F major, K. 158
• String Quartet No. 6 in B flat major, K. 159
• String Quartet No. 7 in E flat major, K. 160/159a
• String Quartet No. 8 in F major, K. 168
• String Quartet No. 9 in F major, K. 169
• String Quartet No. 10 in C major, K. 170
• String Quartet No. 11 in E flat major, K. 171
• String Quartet No. 12 in B flat major, K. 172
• String Quartet No. 13 in D minor, K. 173
• String Quartet No. 14 in G major, K. 387, “Spring”
• String Quartet No. 15 in D minor, K. 421/417b
• String Quartet No. 16 in E flat major, K. 428/421b
• String Quartet No. 17 in B flat major, K. 458, “Hunt”
• String Quartet No. 18 in A major, K. 464
• String Quartet No. 19 in C major, K. 465, “Dissonance”
• String Quartet No. 20 in D major, K. 499, “Hoffmeister”
• String Quarter No. 21 in D major, K. 575
• String Quartet No. 22 in B flat major, K. 589
• String Quartet No. 23 in F major, K. 590

These works by Jon Appleton evoke concern:

• Sonata for Cello & Piano (2004)
• Violin Sonata No. 2 (2007)

Other works:

• Foulds, Vocal Concerto, "Lyra Celtica", Op. 50
• Boris Tchaikovsky, Cello Concerto (1964): I; II; III (concern)
• Bliss, Music for Strings, Op. 54, F123 (1935)
• Weinberg, Chamber Symphony No. 3 for string orchestra, Op. 151 (1990)
• Robert Fuchs, 6 Phantasiestücke (Fantasy Pieces) for viola and piano, Op. 117
• Robert Fuchs, Sonata in D minor for viola and piano, Op. 86
• Vranický, Symphony in D Major, Op. 36

Fictional Narratives

As birds make nests out of everything, so children make a doll out of anything which comes to hand. While Éponine and Azelma were bundling up the cat, Cosette, on her side, had dressed up her sword. That done, she laid it in her arms, and sang to it softly, to lull it to sleep. The doll is one of the most imperious needs and, at the same time, one of the most charming instincts of feminine childhood. To care for, to clothe, to deck, to dress, to undress, to redress, to teach, scold a little, to rock, to dandle, to lull to sleep, to imagine that something is some one,--therein lies the whole woman's future. While dreaming and chattering, making tiny outfits, and baby clothes, while sewing little gowns, and corsages and bodices, the child grows into a young girl, the young girl into a big girl, the big girl into a woman. The first child is the continuation of the last doll. A little girl without a doll is almost as unhappy, and quite as impossible, as a woman without children. So Cosette had made herself a doll out of the sword. [Victor Hugo, Les Misérables (1862), Volume II – Cosette; Book Third – Accomplishment of a Promise Made To a Dead Woman, Chapter VIII, The Unpleasantness of Receiving Into One’s House a Poor Man Who May Be a Rich Man.] 

From the dark side:

• Piero Chiara, The Bishop’s Bedroom: A Novel (New Vessel Press, 2019): “. . . Chiara explores the disaffected, essentially corrupt world that allows her murder to happen, a world in which complacent, middle-class men and women are returning to their prosperous lives after the (to them) superficial interruption of Mussolini.”

Poetry

From the dark side:

• Edgar Lee Masters, “Hiram Scates”
• Edgar Lee Masters, “Mabel Osborne”