We honor a person’s value by commemorating their accomplishments and observing their special quality or character. Small though the honor may be, the artists, scholars, leaders and others whose contributions are offered as exemplary models on this site are being honored in their value.
Real
True Narratives
Shakespeare’s work probably has received more extensive treatment than anyone else’s.
- Garry Wills, Rome and Rhetoric: Shakespeare’s “Julius Caesar” (Yale University Press, 2011).
- Garry Wills, Verdi’s Shakespeare: Men of the Theatre (Viking, 2011).
- Andrew McConnell Stott, What Blest Genius? The Jubilee That Made Shakespeare (W.W. Norton & Company, 2019): “ . . . a vivacious portrait of the Stratford-upon-Avon Jubilee of 1769, organized by the actor and manager David Garrick, whose goal was to make a lot of noise for himself and in the process marmorealize Shakespeare.”
- Stuart Kells, Shakespeare’s Library: Unlocking the Greatest Mystery in Literature (Counterpoint, 2019): “Kells goes on a quest through the oddly perverse world of booksellers and bibliographers, in search of Shakespeare’s own tomes.”
Other narratives on the subject:
- Sean Connolly, On Every Tide: The Making and Remaking of the Irish World (): “In June 1963, on his sentimental journey to the land of his ancestors, President John F. Kennedy told an adoring crowd in Cork, Ireland, 'Most countries send out oil or iron, steel or gold, or some other crop, but Ireland has had only one export and that is its people.'”
Documentary and Educational Films
- Calle 54, a documentary “tribute to Latin jazz”
- Buena Vista Social Club, a documentary tribute to Cuban music and musicians
Imaginary
Visual Arts
- Marc Chagall, Homage to Mozart (1972)
- Salvador Dali, Homage to Erik Satie (1926)
- Georges Braque, Homage to J.S. Bach (1912)
- Gustav Klimt, Schubert at the Piano II (1899)
- Gustav Klimt, Schubert at the Piano I (c. 1896)
- Vasily Perov, Portrait of the Sculptor Vladimir Brovsky
- Pierre-Auguste Renoir, Richard Wagner (1882)
- Henri Fantin-Latour, A Studio in the Batignolles (Homage to Manet) (1870)
- Henri Fantin-Latour, Homage to Delacroix (1864)
Music: songs and other short pieces
- Dan Fogelberg, Leader of the Band (Dan Fogelberg’s father was a band leader)
- Nawang Khechog, Nobel Peace Laureate, 1989; The Dalai Lama of Tibet
- Schubert, Cantate zum Guberstag des Sängers Michael Vogel (Cantata for the Birthday of the Singer Johann Michael Vogel), D. 666
- Xenakis, À R. (Hommage à Ravel) (1987)
- Villa-Lobos, Hommage à Chopin
Music: Composers, artists, and major works
Every composer’s value is honored on the performance of his works. I choose Hugo Wolf to represent this value because the Hugo Wolf Society compiled, and EMI has released an excellent set of his works. The collection includes performances from 1931-1938.
In keeping with his Le Tombeau de Couperin, Maurice Ravel composed a five-movement suite for solo piano, honoring five fellow members of a French avant-garde group, Les Apaches. The work is titled Miroirs (Mirrors), M. 13 (1905). Top performances are by Lortie, Thibaudet, Chamayou, Rana and Osborne.
Jazz trumpeter Franz Koglmann is among the most outwardly thoughtful of musicians. He has paid homage to at least two disparate musical figures:
- “An Affair with Strauss” album
- "We Thought About Duke" album
Compositions:
- Hindemith, Nobilissima Visione, suite drawn from the ballet Saint Francis (1938), in honor of St. Francis of Assisi
- Howard Hanson commented that his Symphony No. 3, Op. 33 (1941) is a tribute to “the sturdy race of northern pioneers who as early as 1638 founded the first Swedish settlement on the Delaware, and who were in later centuries to constitute such a mighty force in the conquering of the West.”
- Veress, Hommage à Paul Klee (1951)
- La Barbara, 73 Poems of Kenneth Goldsmith
- Halffter, Elegies for the Deaths of 3 Spanish Poets
- Kurtág, Hommage à Robert Schumann, Op. 15D
- Milhaud: Les charmes de la vie (Hommage à Watteau), Op. 360 (1957)
- Panufnik, Hommage à Chopin, for flute and small string orchestra (1966 arrangement of 1949 vocal work)
- Schifrin, Hommage à Ravel (1995)
- Foss, Symphony No. 1 in G Major (1944)
- Getty, The White Election: song cycle set to Emily Dickinson poems
- Foulds, Apotheosis (Elegy) for violin and orchestra (Elegy), Op. 18: composed to honor the violinist Joseph Joachim, after he died
- Chen, Er Huang, for piano & orchestra (2009): based on Peking opera melodies
- John Adams, My Father Knew Charles Ives (2003): I. Concord; II The Lake; 3. The Mountain.
- Atterberg, Symphony No. 1, in B Minor, Op. 3 (1910): borrowing from Bruckner and Brahms
- Willson, Symphony No. 2 in E Minor, “The Mission of California”
- Cornysh, Stabat Mater
- Bolcom, Recuerdos (three homages) (1991)
- Harbach, Visions of Hildegard for Violin and Piano
- Michael Colgrass, Letter from Mozart (1976): a contemporary composer draws on Mozart’s work for his own.
- Petros Petridis, Requiem for the Emperor Constantine Palaiologos (1964): “The Requiem for the Emperor Constantine Palaiologos mourns the end of the Byzantine Empire with elegiac lyricism culminating in an ultimately uplifting finale.”
Performances:
- “Interpretations of Monk”: a recording of a live performance on November 1, 1981, at Wollman Auditorium, Columbia University, New York City, featuring pianists Muhal Richard Abrams and Barry Harris
Albums:
- Michael Musillami, “Pictures”
- Louis Hayes, “Serenade for Horace”
- John Beasley, “MONK’estra Plays John Beasley”
- Mike Kaupa, Ric Vice and Tom George, “Stardust: Songs of Hoagy Carmichael”
- Leon Lee Dorsey, “Thank You Mr. Mabern”
- Matthew Shipp, William Parker & Guillermo E. Brown, “The Trio Plays Ware”
- Harold Mabern, “Mabern Plays Coltrane”
- Pete Malinverni, “On the Town: Pete Malinverni Plays Leonard Bernstein”: an upbeat treatment of some of Bernstein’s most popular tunes
- Tülay German & François Rabbath, “Hommage a Nazim Hikmet” – Hikmet was a Turkish poet.
- Various artists, “Astor 2020: La Historia Continúa”: a collection of tracks after the legendary accordionist and tango champion, Astor Piazzolla
- Clarice Assad, “Window to the World: A Tribute to Milton Nascimento” (2022): “Capturing the essence and spirit of Nascimento’s songs, the ensemble impart their own identities into nine reimaginings, juxtaposing moments of dark harmony and tension against infectiously positive Brazilian grooves.”
- Alternative Guitar Summit, “Honoring Pat Martino, Volume 1” (2022): “There are a mere handful of guitarists that have changed the way we think about the guitar over the past five or six decades, Pat Martino is perhaps one of the greatest and best-known of those icons.”
Poetry
Poems:
- Pablo Neruda, “Chant to Bolivar”
- John Keats, “Robin Hood”