Nurturance is protection’s more affirming twin. Both are actions directed toward another’s welfare. One prevents harm, the other promotes well-being.
The baroque-era flute sonata tends to impart a motherly quality to the music, with the soprano-voiced flute leading the way for her charges.
Real
Imaginary
Visual Arts
- Paul Gaugin, The Offering
- Jean-Honoré Fragonard, The Good Mother (c. 1773)
- Wassily Kandinsky, Black Accompaniment (1924)
Music: songs and other short pieces
- Paul Simon, Loves Me Like a Rock
Film and Stage
- The Country Girl, “Clifford Odets’ poignant drama of a broken-down actor, his loyal wife and a misunderstanding stage director”
- Sundays and Cybele, a film about a young girl nurturing a man back to emotional health
Music: Composers, artists, and major works
Edvard Grieg composed his Piano Concerto in A Minor, Op. 16 (1868), in the year his daughter was born. Perhaps that has something to do with its exquisite tenderness, coupled with strength. Of the nearly 400 recordings that have been released, here are perhaps the best: de Greef in 1927, Rubinstein in 1942, Lipatti in 1947, Michelangeli in 1965, Cziffra in 1969, Kovacevich in 1971, Lupu in 1973, Slåttebrekk in 2004, Shelley in 2008, Bavouzet in 2017.
Beethoven, Piano Sonata No. 28 in A major, Op. 101 (1816)
Bach, Flute Sonatas:
- Sonata in G minor for flute and harpsichord, bwv 1020
- Sonata in B minor for flute and harpsichord, bwv 1030
- Sonata in E-flat major for flute and harpsichord, bwv 1031
- Sonata in A major for flute and harpsichord, bwv 1032
- Sonata in C major for flute and basso continuo, bwv 1033
- Sonata in E minor for flute and basso continuo, bwv 1034
- Sonata in E major for flute and basso continuo, bwv 1035
Locatelli, Flute Sonatas, Op. 2
- Sonata No. 1 in C major
- Sonata No. 2 in D major
- Sonata No. 3 in B flat major
- Sonata No. 4 in G major
- Sonata No. 5 in D major
- Sonata No. 6 in G minor
- Sonata No. 7 in A major
- Sonata No. 8 in F major
- Sonata No. 9 in E major
- Sonata No. 10 in G major
- Sonata No. 11 in D major
- Sonata No. 12 in G major
Locatelli, Trio Sonatas, Op. 5
- Sonata No. 1 in G major
- Sonata No. 2 in E minor
- Sonata No. 3 in E major
- Sonata No. 4 in C major
- Sonata No. 5 in D minor
- Sonata No. 6 in G major
Other works:
- Bach, 3 sonatas for viola da gamba and keyboard instrument, BWV 1027–1029 (1720-1721)
- Arensky, Piano Quintet in D Major, Op. 51 (1900): the strings nurture and support the adventurous piano.
- Balakirev, Piano Concerto No. 2 in E-flat Major
- Raga Bilaskhani Todi (Bilāskhānī Todī), a Hindustani classical raag for late morning: in the image usually associated with this composition, a woman attracts a deer in the forest with her vina (performances by Ali Akbar Khan, Ravi Shankar and Nikhil Banerjee).
- Raga Manj Khamaj, a Hindustani classical raag (performances by Nikhil Banerjee, Ali Akbar Khan and Ravi Shankar, and Ali Akbar Khan)
Poetry
Poems:
- Pablo Neruda, “Ode to Wine”
- David Bates, “Chiding”
Fictional Narratives
From the dark side:
- Sarah Manguso, Very Cold People: A Novel (Hogarth, 2022): “. . . her parents are wicked; not in the Massachusetts slang sense but like Roald Dahl villains: alternately absent or all too present in the claustrophobia of their modest circumstances. Headboards bang; scalps smell; private parts flash and flop.”