Imaginary

Visual Arts

• Wassily Kandinsky, Structure Joyeuse (Merry Structure) (1926)
• Vasily Perov, Joyful Father (1874)
• Honore Daumier, Joyful Song Performed by M. Cobden

Film and Stage

• The Sound of Music: Maria’s “problem” was her gift to a family

Music: Composers, artists, and major works

In the small, landlocked country of Zambia, in Southern Africa, the music expresses something more than mere happiness. Zambian music combines forward-driving rhythms and life-affirming melodies with a sense of easy peace.

• old Zambian songs
• Zambian old school music
• A Zambian old school compilation
• Zambian love songs
• Zambian love songs
• Zambian gospel music
• Zambian worship songs
• Zambian music 2017
• Zambian music 2018
• Zambian music 2019
• Zambian music 2020
• Zambian music 2021

Rachel Magoola, Ugandan singer, albums:

• “Resilience: Songs of Uganda” (2021)
• “Eisadha” (2008)
• “Songs from the Source of the Nile” (2005)

Mozart’s four flute quartets (1777-1778):

• Flute Quartet No. 1 in D major, K 285
• Flute Quartet No. 2 in G major, K 285A
• Flute Quartet No. 3 in C major, K 285B
• Flute Quartet No. 4 in A major, K 298

Other compositions:

• Alfvén, Symphony No. 3 in E major, Op. 23 (1905): The composer called it a hymn to joy.
• Raga Bageshwari is a Hindustani classical raag for late evening (performances by Sharma, Banerjee and Chakraborty).
• Raga Pilu (Piloo): Nimbus’ The Raga Guide describes this as an imaginative and complex raga that expresses “joy, devotion, happiness and love”. It is a Hindustani classical raag, usually played in late and morning and often related to monsoon season (performances by Banerjee, Vilayat Khan and Shankar).
• Gibbons, Hymnes & Songs of the Church: Songs of Joy
• Van Eyck, Der Fluyten Lust-hof (The Flute’s Garden of Delight)
• William Wordsworth, Jubilation, A Festival for Orchestra, Op. 78 (1965)

Gospel groups and singers generally hold nothing back in expressing their joy. It is an integral part of their offering.

• American gospel music
• Reggae gospel music
• Haitian gospel music
• Jamaican gospel music
• Old country gospel songs

Iconic American gospel artists:

• The Soul Stirrers
• The Dixie Hummingbirds (live)
• Claude Jeter and the Swan Silvertones
• Golden Gate Quartet
• James Cleveland

Albums:

• “Traditional Music from Macedonia”: This music is Greek with softened edges. The album is a joyous celebration of Macedonian culture.
• Josh Levinson Septet, “Morning Joy”
• Tobias Wiklund, “Where the Spirits Eat”
• Jim Snidero & Jeremy Pelt, “Jubilation!”
• Lauren Sevian, “Bliss”
• Yoko Miwa Trio, “Songs of Joy”
• Ernesto Cervini, “Joy” (2022): “The Juno-winning musician was inspired by Louise Penny’s award-winning series of mystery novels and was moved to make music that captures the characters, settings and relationships contained in the books.  “I completely fell in love,” Cervini says. 'I was captured by the storytelling and the incredible characters. Although they are detective novels, the books are filled with kindness and joy, and I was inspired to write music that reflects the themes and characters in the books.'”
• Laura Jurd, “The Big Friendly Album” (2022), “is a big hearted, gorgeously lyrical, feel-good romp, which does not preclude cerebral engagement but which wears its complexities so lightly that one barely notices them.”
• Grupo Lokito, “Bomoko” (2022) (36’) is an album of joy and energy from a Congolese group with Cuban influences.

Poetry

O to make the most jubilant song! / Full of music—full of manhood, womanhood, infancy! /Full of common employments—full of grain and trees. / O for the voices of animals—O for the swiftness and balance of fishes! / O for the dropping of raindrops in a song! / O for the sunshine and motion of waves in a song!

[Walt Whitman, Leaves of Grass (1891-92), Book XI, “A Song of Joys”]

The earth keeps some vibration going
There in your heart, and that is you.
And if the people find you can fiddle,
Why, fiddle you must, for all your life.
What do you see, a harvest of clover?
Or a meadow to walk through to the river?
The wind's in the corn; you rub your hands
For beeves hereafter ready for market;
Or else you hear the rustle of skirts
Like the girls when dancing at Little Grove.
To Cooney Potter a pillar of dust
Or whirling leaves meant ruinous drouth;
They looked to me like Red-Head Sammy
Stepping it off to 'Toor-a-Loor.'
How could I till my forty acres
Not to speak of getting more,
With a medley of horns, bassoons and piccolos
Stirred in my brain by crows and robins
And the creak of a wind-mill- only these?
And I never started to plow in my life
That some one did not stop in the road
And take me away to a dance or picnic.
I ended up with forty acres;
I ended up with a broken fiddle-
And a broken laugh, and a thousand memories,
And not a single regret.

[Edgar Lee Masters, “Fiddler Jones”]

Other poems:

• Edward Field, “A Journey”
• Siegfried Sassoon, “Everyone Sang”
• William Blake, “Infant Joy”

Music: songs and other short pieces

• Loggins & Messina, Vahevala
• Franz Schubert (composer), An die Freude (Ode to Joy), D. 189 (1815) (lyrics)