Imaginary

Visual Arts

• Pablo Picasso, The Happy Family (1917)
• Gustav Klimt, The Beethoven Frieze: The Longing for Happiness - left wall (1902)
• Gustav Klimt, The Beethoven Frieze: The Longing for Happiness Finds Repose in Poetry - right wall (1902)
• Judith Leyster, Self-Portrait (c. 1635)
• Nicolas Poussin, Dance to the Music of Time (1634)
• Tintoretto, Allegory of Happiness (1564)

Film and Stage

On the shadow side:

• Playtime, this comedy about a “family that inherits a lot of money, tries to put on fancy airs, loses its soul, and only finds itself again when the fortune is taken away” suggests that happiness is not found in modern toys

Music: Composers, artists, and major works

Conjunto:

• 2011 Tejano Conjunto Festival
• Acordeonas de Tejas Conjunto TV show
• Primeros Conjuntos en Texas
• Los Texmaniacs
• Tejano Conjunto Festival, San Antonio, 1992
• Tejano Blue Sensation
• Manzanita y su Conjunto, “Trujillo, Peru, 1971-1974” album

Polka:

• Myron Floren
• Frankie Yankovic
• Six Fat Dutchmen

The Irish jig. A top exponent is the group called Téada. Their albums include:

• “Téada” (2003)
• “Lá an Dreoilín” (Give Us a Penny and Let Us Be Gone) (2004)
• “Ceol is Cuimhne” (Music & Memory) (2010)
• “Ainneoin Na Stoirme” (In Spite of the Storm) (2013)

Another excellent Irish group is Goitse. Their albums include:

• “Rosc” (2022)
• “Úr” (2019). “In the Irish language, the word úr evokes both the ancient and the modern. In modern Irish it means ‘fresh’ or ‘new.’ In the distant past it was one of the letters of the Ogham alphabet, stemming from the Old Irish word for heather.”

Zelenka, Capriccios:

• Capriccio No. 1 in D Major, ZWV182 (1717)
• Capriccio No. 2 in G Major, ZWV183 (1717)
• Capriccio No. 3 in F Major, ZWV184 (1717) 1. Allegro; 2. Allemande; 3. Allegro
• Capriccio No. 4 in A Major, ZWV185 (1717)
• Capriccio No. 5 in G Major, ZWV190 (1729)

Other works:

• Radecke, Symphony in F Major, Op. 50
• Raga Khamaj, a Hindustani classical raag for late morning (performances by Nikhil Banerjee, Vilayat Khan and Budhaditya Mukherjee)
• Raga Suha Kanada (Suha Kanara – Suha Kannada – Suha Kannara), Hindustani classical raag for early evening (performances by Manilal Nag, Manilal Nag live and Manilal Nag on the World Music label)

Albums:

• Mr. Acker Bilk & His Paramount Jazzband, “The Noble Art of Mr. Acker Bilk”
• Johnny Wiggs and Raymond Burke, "Big 4" double album
• Chris Barber, “Can’t We Get Together”
• Martin Bruhns, “Picaflor” (2021): “. . . a fresh venture into the fertile grasslands of the Peruvian Mantaro Valley, home of the proud Wanka people and the music equivalent to Jamaica as a holy birthplace to many contemporary Andean riddims, particularly the widely celebrated genres of huayno and chicha.”
• Steven Bernstein’s Milennial Territory Orchestra, “Good Time Music (Community Music, Volume 2)”, “reflects musical lessons drawn from his collaborations with Levon Helm and Larry Campbell, combined with Duke Ellington and the Art Ensemble of Chicago. Indeed, all those influences filter through these half-dozen frequently raucous tracks, featuring the boisterous, soulful belting of Catherine Russell.”
• Marius Neset, “Happy” (2022) (49’): “'There is a "message" in the title of this album,' says Neset. 'It’s very simple, but also a very strong one. We had a great time recording the album. A week in the studio, day and night, everyone was loving it. And that long process of making it has essentially been whittled down…into the happiest moments we had.'”

Fictional Narratives

In came a fiddler with a music-book, and went up to the lofty desk, and made an orchestra of it, and tuned like fifty stomach-aches. In came Mrs. Fezziwig, one vast substantial smile. In came the three Miss Fezziwigs, beaming and lovable. In came the six young followers whose hearts they broke. In came all the young men and women employed in the business. In came the housemaid, with her cousin, the baker. In came the cook, with her brother's particular friend, the milkman. In came the boy from over the way, who was suspected of not having board enough from his master; trying to hide himself behind the girl from next door but one, who was proved to have had her ears pulled by her mistress. In they all came, one after another; some shyly, some boldly, some gracefully, some awkwardly, some pushing, some pulling; in they all came, anyhow and everyhow. Away they all went, twenty couple at once; hands half round and back again the other way; down the middle and up again; round and round in various stages of affectionate grouping; old top couple always turning up in the wrong place; new top couple starting off again, as soon as they got there; all top couples at last, and not a bottom one to help them! When this result was brought about, old Fezziwig, clapping his hands to stop the dance, cried out, "Well done!" and the fiddler plunged his hot face into a pot of porter, especially provided for that purpose. But scorning rest, upon his reappearance, he instantly began again, though there were no dancers yet, as if the other fiddler had been carried home, exhausted, on a shutter, and he were a bran-new man resolved to beat him out of sight, or perish.  There were more dances, and there were forfeits, and more dances, and there was cake, and there was negus, and there was a great piece of Cold Roast, and there was a great piece of Cold Boiled, and there were mince-pies, and plenty of beer. But the great effect of the evening came after the Roast and Boiled, when the fiddler (an artful dog, mind! The sort of man who knew his business better than you or I could have told it him!) struck up "Sir Roger de Coverley."  Then old Fezziwig stood out to dance with Mrs. Fezziwig. Top couple, too; with a good stiff piece of work cut out for them; three or four and twenty pair of partners; people who were not to be trifled with; people who would dance, and had no notion of walking.  But if they had been twice as many--ah, four times--old Fezziwig would have been a match for them, and so would Mrs. Fezziwig. As to her, she was worthy to be his partner in every sense of the term. If that's not high praise, tell me higher, and I'll use it. A positive light appeared to issue from Fezziwig's calves. They shone in every part of the dance like moons. You couldn't have predicted, at any given time, what would have become of them next. And when old Fezziwig and Mrs. Fezziwig had gone all through the dance; advance and retire, both hands to your partner, bow and curtsey, corkscrew, thread-the-needle, and back again to your place; Fezziwig "cut"--cut so deftly, that he appeared to wink with his legs, and came upon his feet again without a stagger.  [Charles Dickens, A Christmas Carol (1843), Stave II: The First of the Three Spirits.]

Novels and stories, from the dark side:

• Tove Ditlevsen, The Trouble with Happiness: And Other Stories (Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 2022): “In Tove Ditlevsen’s World, Happy Families Don’t Stand a Chance”.
• Claire Stanford, Happy for You: A Novel (Viking, 2022): “Big Tech Wants to Commodify Your Happiness”.

Poetry

If I when my wife is sleeping / and the baby and Kathleen / are sleeping / and the sun is a flame-white disc / in silken mists / above shining trees,— / if I in my north room / dance naked, grotesquely / before my mirror / waving my shirt round my head / and singing softly to myself: / “I am lonely, lonely. / I was born to be lonely, / I am best so!” / If I admire my arms, my face, / my shoulders, flanks, buttocks / against the yellow drawn shades,—

Who shall say I am not / the happy genius of my household?

[William Carlos Williams, “Danse Russe”]

Music: songs and other short pieces

• The Chieftains, Carolan’s Concerto
• Franz Schubert (composer), Irdisches Glück (Earthly Happiness), D. 866, No. 4 (1821) (lyrics)