Imaginary

Visual Arts

• Paul Klee, Ad Marginem (1930)
• Frederic Edwin Church, Newport Mountain, Mount Desert (1851)
• James McNeill Whistler, Harmony in Blue and Silver: Trouville (1865)

Music: Composers, artists, and major works

“Mahler’s Eighth Symphony is his most ambitious work. It reaches a level of complexity, a breadth of subject matter and size of forces, on equal not only in Mahler’s works but also in the history of the symphony to the date of its composition.” With its grand scale and scope, Mahler’s Symphony No. 8 in E-flat major “Symphony of a Thousand” (1906) is a musical expression of strength through unity, founded in Love. “. . . the composer accentuates the concepts of divine grace, enlightenment, and eternal love . . . Despite their seemingly disparate natures, Mahler has, in fact, joined two texts that verbalize central tenets of his spiritual and metaphysical ethos.” Scored for a full orchestra and two gigantic choirs, the lyrics abound in overtly theistic themes but Mahler, as usual, was looking elsewhere. His intent was to express the connection “between the early expression of Christian belief . . . and Goethe’s symbolic vision of mankind’s redemption through love.” [from Michael Kennedy’s notes accompanying Tennstedt’s 1987 EMI issue of the work] Mahler wrote: “Hitherto I have always used words and voices simply in an explanatory way, as a short cut to creating a certain atmosphere and to express something which, purely symphonically, could only be expressed at great length, with the terseness and precision only possible by using words. Here, on the other hand, voices are also used as instruments: the first movement is strictly symphonic in form but all of it is sung. Strange, in fact, that this has never occurred to any other composer – it really is Columbus’ egg, a ‘pure’ symphony in which the most beautiful instrument in the world is given its true place – and not simply as one sonority among others, for in my symphony the human voice is after all the bearer of the whole poetic idea.” Dedicated formally to his wife Alma, Mahler offered the symphony as “a gift to the whole nation”. Horenstein in 1959, Mitropoulos in 1960, Solti in 1972, Tennstedt in 1986, Gielen in 1988, Bertini in 1991, Abbado in 1994, Dudamel in 2012, and Jurowski in 2021 conducted top performances.

Other works:

• Nahuel Schrajis, Oneness Blessing (instrumental)
• Jack DeJohnette, Oneness album (Priestesses of the Mist in live performance)
• Gregory Barrette, The Heart of Oneness
• Imee Ooi, The Five Words Mantra of Manjushri Boddhisata
• Boulez, Dialogue de l'ombre double for clarinet and electronics (1985): a scene in Paul Claudel’s play, Le Soulier de satin (1924), in which a man’s and woman’s shadow are projected onto a wall, as one.
• Scott Wollschleger, Outside Only Sound (2020): strings and percussion amid the natural sounds, including people, outdoors in Brooklyn, New York
• Anne Leilehua Lanzilotti, with eyes the color of time (2020): “A finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in Music, 2022, with eyes the color of time is hailed as 'a vibrant composition, inspired by works in The Contemporary Museum in Honolulu, that distinctly combines experimental string textures and episodes of melting lyricism,' by the Pulitzer committee.”

Albums:

• Paul Bley Trio, “Closer”
• Paul Bley, Charlie Haden and Paul Motian, “Memoirs”
• Shijin, “Theory of Everything”
• Matthew Shipp & Ivo Perelman, “Oneness”
• Balladeste, “Beyond Breath”
• Nate Wooley, “Columbia Icefield” (2019): “. . . the Pacific Northwest bred trumpeter tries to reckon with his relation to the Icefield and, more generally, humanity in the face of the unapproachable.”
• Nate Wooley & Columbia Icefield, “Ancient Songs of Burlap Heroes” (2022): “. . . a thematic homecoming that contrasts the intimacy of one’s roots with the vastness of the wider world.”
• Wojtek Mazolewski Quintet, “Spirit to All” (2022): “'Spirit To All' was created as an answer to our spiritual needs . . . During my preparations for recording I felt simultaneous connection between myself and everything around me. There was this urge within me to express my unity with the surroundings. . . . This album is about spiritual needs, limitless and loving understanding, about compassionate development.”

Poetry

I am a feather on the bright sky
I am the blue horse that runs in the plain
I am the fish that rolls, shining, in the water
I am the shadow that follows a child
I am the evening light, the lustre of meadows
I am an eagle playing with the wind
I am a cluster of bright beads
I am the farthest star
I am the cold of dawn
I am the roaring of the rain
I am the glitter on the crust of the snow
I am the long track of the moon in a lake
I am a flame of four colors
I am a deer standing away in the dusk
I am a field of sumac and the pomme blanche
I am an angle of geese in the winter sky
I am the hunger of a young wolf
I am the whole dream of these things

You see, I am alive, I am alive
I stand in good relation to the earth
I stand in good relation to the gods
I stand in good relation to all that is beautiful
I stand in good relation to the daughter of Tsen-tainte
You see, I am alive, I am alive

[Navarre Scott Momaday, “The Delight Song of Tsoai-Talee”]

Music: songs and other short pieces

• Franz Schubert (composer), Am Strome (By the River), D. 539 (1817) (lyrics)